The unofficial AFC Rushden & Diamonds messageboard

Biggles wrote:

Mad Dog wrote:I stand by my belief that a phoenix club with 'Rushden' and 'Diamonds' in it's name can become a success and draw upon support in the wider community. It's about a club's relationship with it's fans and community and the connection with the team on the pitch that matters most.

The problem being that wider community has not been supporting Rushden and Diamonds in the last few years.

The club has now been tainted with fraud and corruption it does not matter if its true or not as we all know MUD STICKS and how much you scrub youself down that Mud never seems to go away.

So to just add AFC to the name of Rushden and Diamonds will in a lot of cases not even be noticed and as TOD states many will feel its the same club run by the same people.

Just because we on this forum follow whats going on and know the reasons behind our demise many do not and if you read other reports many state we are in a financial mess caused by years of overspending by fat cat owners.

Almost all phoenix clubs (not AFC Wimbledon) are in the same boat though, the old club has lived beyond it's means and gone bust leaving a string of creditors and a lot of bad feeling. However as far as I am aware none have had radical name changes in order to pretend that they are totally unconnected in any way. I fail to see the point of setting up a club that does not include both "Rushden" and "Diamonds" in it's name and acknowledge that it was set up by those that previously supported the club with a similar name from Nene Park.
Rather than start a club with some awful name like East Northants United, I would prefer that we voted to follow another local side Wellingborough Town (average attendance 107) or Raunds Town (ave 72) would be totally transformed by an extra 3-400 fans and would be back in the Southern League in 3-4 years.

I never suggested a radical name change, i don't think we should go as far as TOD suggested but we must do better than just change the FC to AFC.

In my mind we must drop the 'and' because we will be no longer be a merged club.

Sporting Rushden Diamonds

Bobs yer Uncle

CountHermanDeBanker wrote:Sporting Rushden Diamonds

Bobs yer Uncle

Brilliant, I like that!

Dyanamo Diamonds?
Real Rushden?

we def need to keep both 'rushden' and 'diamonds' but not too sure on the afc thing
no one really uses the 'and' anyway and like someone said we aint a merged club anymore
i quite like 'fc rushden diamonds'

There are limits that I shall not cross and I do not find Rushden Diamonds appealing, it implies it's only a Rushden team and I think our supporter base is much wider than that.

Two of Diamonds wrote:There are limits that I shall not cross and I do not find Rushden Diamonds appealing, it implies it's only a Rushden team and I think our supporter base is much wider than that.

Likewise the team is widely known as 'Rushden' in football, so anything that does not include 'Rushden' and 'Diamonds' is not a phoenix club. You will split what's left of the fanbase by burying the name.

Regarding the name being 'tainted', The old Chester were considered pariahs by their own community, affiliated wih corruption and poor financial management. They retain their name (Chester City were known throughout most of their history as Chester FC), put a lot of effort into PR and ensuring people recognised that they were taking the best of Chester, were a clear break from the Vaughans with a club democratically run by the fans, and are now as a result enjoying some of their best ever attendence and season ticket sales.

Why should we, the fans hide ourselves because of the actions of others? If we do not defend and restore our identity as Rushden and Diamonds, we've already lost.

Anyway, this keeps going in circles and the key point is that it's up to the wider fanbase what the club is called as well, not just this forum.

I quite like Rushden & Diamonds United, I'm also a fan of both variations of AFC (before or after the Rushden & Diamonds part), but I can agree there needs to be a little variation to show we are not quite the same.

I like the United part because it comes about as a result of the fans uniting. That it implies we are united as a community in creating/recreating the club, and that we are united behind it. The down side is it opens it up to all sorts of horridly generic "United" chants.

This is a matter to be decided over the coming season while everything is being set up, and like others have said, the full fanbase needs to be able to have input.

I like the name Rushden & Diamonds United...