The unofficial AFC Rushden & Diamonds messageboard

bozzer wrote:Apparently coming up in the et tomorrow porter admits his future probably is away from rushden :(
Am finding it difficult not to get frustrated at our current situation, there's no updates from anyone although I don't think there is anyone to step up!

Yeah you're not alone, I'm still going to do what I can to raise money and keep up the online campaign in support of the pixels but I've just about lost hope of saving the club tbh. Its not over I know and its great that we have been able to raise some money from yesterday's event and twitter but I guess we're still a million miles off raising what we need :(

Biggles wrote:To be honest if we get through this we will have a very low budget anyhow so most of the team will be ex Youth Players with maybe a couple of players with some experience.

Whay we are doing now is the start of a very, very long haul.

Exactly this. The players probably don't know much. I imagine a few want to stay, but it's impractical. They don't know if there will be a club let alone if they will be offered a contract, if that contract will be full time or part time, or how much money it will be for.

It would be worth knowing though if any of the players would be willing to help start up a reformed team (potentially playing away from Nene Park, initially at least).

I hate to be so pessemistic, but like most others I fear the worst. Without a money man the club cannot be saved in it's current guise. Are people looking at setting this up so it could start next season? If we can get the ball rolling we would be able to start just 2 or 3 levels lower.

I think you'll find that it will be four or five leagues below from what someone said last Friday.
In which case it would be a completely new team and management.
I assume someone from the trust is looking at what we need to do for a Phoenix.

Clearly without a few large donators, it is looking like a Phoenix club might be our only route

Guys let's keep pushing until the end. I think BR said that Kidderminster were hours away from CVA before they were saved. Imagine if they had given up earlier, they wouldn't have a club. With hindsight they did the right thing by fighting to end. Let's do the same.

bozzer wrote:I think you'll find that it will be four or five leagues below from what someone said last Friday.
In which case it would be a completely new team and management.
I assume someone from the trust is looking at what we need to do for a Phoenix.

Clearly without a few large donators, it is looking like a Phoenix club might be our only route

I wasn't able to attend, but was this from infomration that was obtained by asking the relevant authorities?

The reason I ask is that I know the minimum drop is 2 levels. Chester only dropped so far as they had to sort out a lot of issues which meant their application to join leagues was later than the scheduled deadline, and they had to appeal to be allowed into the level they were based on crowd safety (due to the large volume of away fans they would take).

I don't think anyone is saying give up, but it's stupid not to have people looking into the possibility and getting everything sorted so the worst case scenario isn't quite so bad.

^^ They changed the rules after Chester. We would start at level 10.

Someone had spoken to Chester about what they did last year and I can't remember how but was told that the no club would be allowed to enter at such a high level.

I agree mad dog we must keep going, you just look for a bit of hope from people with friends in higher places

Playing at hayden road would be the most pratical idea because I'm guessing that if we had to contribute anymoney it would probably be around 1/20th of the current funning costs at nene park a month, this money exists already in what we have raised. I also think we would actually make at profit on match days as the break even point would be far lower and we would hopefully get around 400 home fans at a match. Then we could set up an online club shop which could generate around £500 a month and have a new radio service, or just update radio diamonds and we could sell advertising blocks on the show for £5 which would appeal to local businesses. All match day staff can be volunteers to help keep the running costs down. Of course the questions regarding this would be:
Can we keep the trust money for this new club?
At what level is hayden road up to the standard of hosting games for?
How much would it cost a month to play at Hayden Road?

You never know we could one day after a few promotions and build up of fan support be able to play at Nene park once more.

However I believe we should fight until the end for the Rushden and Diamonds to be playing at Nene park next season.

Wasn't the original problem with Rushden Town that Hayden Road wasn't up to standard? I can't see that changing unless we could transport one of our existing stands over to there and considering the complete lack of space Hayden Road has I don't think that would be possible.

Sara Pascoe wrote:Wasn't the original problem with Rushden Town that Hayden Road wasn't up to standard? I can't see that changing unless we could transport one of our existing stands over to there and considering the complete lack of space Hayden Road has I don't think that would be possible.

Knock down the Cricket Club, then there will be plenty of space! :ugeek: