The unofficial AFC Rushden & Diamonds messageboard

Some fair replies. I would rather climb up the leagues to a point where we are competitive/just over breaking even. With our crowds as they are compared to other teams, I can't see why we shouldn't have the best playing squad in this division. If we want to do it slowly as has been suggested above then I guess I can understand why we have players like Brad Harris and Tom Lorraine in our starting XI who don't stand out at this level like your Dolmans Buntings Hobans and Gordons.

Oundle Diamond #2 wrote:Some fair replies. I would rather climb up the leagues to a point where we are competitive/just over breaking even. With our crowds as they are compared to other teams, I can't see why we shouldn't have the best playing squad in this division. If we want to do it slowly as has been suggested above then I guess I can understand why we have players like Brad Harris and Tom Lorraine in our starting XI who don't stand out at this level like your Dolmans Buntings Hobans and Gordons.

Players like brad Harris?? Are you being serious!! Are you watching the right team, f*ck me brad is one of the strongest in the team and 99.9% of the time puts in a shift... 4 games at this level, give them a break! Sounds to me like od2 has the wrong attitude altogether.. We are not the Barcelona of this division. I would rather not go up this season, build a structure, gel with the players available and be financially secure as club before even thinking of competing!! If the team gets to the play offs as they are then fair play! It seems that having Hoban in the team, who in my opinion needs to grow as a player is clouding some peoples judgement :roll:

Oundle Diamond #2 wrote:Some fair replies. I would rather climb up the leagues to a point where we are competitive/just over breaking even. With our crowds as they are compared to other teams, I can't see why we shouldn't have the best playing squad in this division. If we want to do it slowly as has been suggested above then I guess I can understand why we have players like Brad Harris and Tom Lorraine in our starting XI who don't stand out at this level like your Dolmans Buntings Hobans and Gordons.

I think you're missing the point. It's not about wanting to progress slowly, its about progressing at a sustainable rate and not living beyond our means. And are you really naive enough to think that we should have the best squad in the league simply because we have the largest fan base?

SouthRushdenJFC wrote:

Oundle Diamond #2 wrote:I've been to all but one game this season. My contributions on this theme/thread will stop here, but I'll still be hoping we sign a new striker and centre midfielder very soon to ensure we continue to rise up the pyramid at the rate we should be.

....and where are you planning on playing? The D&D might be good enough for the next league up but not the one after that without significant investment. Which opens up a hole new can of worms.

Why not enjoy the Southern League, build and stabilise on the fantsastic and swift progress made so far and then look toward the next step.

I'd like to think we'd be able to move up into the SL Prem in 2 seasons, I feel this squad could do that without drastic changes, and then in the Prem where obviously there's a lot more competition, we look to stabalise there and then when hopefully/maybe we find ourselves in our own ground, we can build and push on from there.

Of course in an ideal world I'd like us challenging near the top every year, but there's no reason to do it speedily, there's no hurry to climb the leagues. Perhaps if we had stayed in the UCL much longer I would have got a bit frustrated personally, but the SL isn't a bad place to stabalise, we've already seen the quality of football is better for sure. Clubs like Chester climbed quickly, but with their much larger fanbase, they clearly would have had more resources to do so. I can't see our crowds increasing too much until we find ourselves in our own ground closer to Rushden though.

Maybe another striker to try and get us a few more goals wouldn't be a terrible idea, but there's not been anything from this team to suggest that we need drastic changes, there's been nothing so far to suggest these players aren't up to this league and like already said, they deserve to be given a chance at this level after getting us here. Just because we're not winning every game, doesn't mean we have to make drastic changes, it's still a new league. It would be lovely if we could just make a championship winning squad overnight, but we'd most likely have to go against the whole ethos of the club in doing that and there really is absolutely no need to rush up the leagues like the old club did.

Fair post Olly.

Olly wrote:....there really is absolutely no need to rush up the leagues like the old club did.

We are already out performing the old club in terms of promotion. They had two promotions, including a Championship in their first 4 seasons. We've had two promotions, including a Championship in just 3 seasons.

Buying the league by signing players who are more than good enough is boring, the other Northants team did that and from what I've read struggled to win 1-0 some weeks.

I like to see a good football encounter, players learning and improving, more enjoyable, most of Hobans ex clubs say he has a consistency problem so we will have to see what happens.

Now we are in a league where we can be sustainable lets build and do it the right way, if we could pick up a few young ones on loan from Northampton, Luton, Peterborough, it would be great, maybe even bring more of our youngsters through. As a club we can only get bigger and grow lets do it steadily but surely.

I'm not really too sure why folk are stressing about progression and the rate of it! A few years ago I was watching under 18s football on a Thursday night !!! We're now watching Step 4 football !! that in itself is a major achievement by a group of volunteers !! Let's not get ahead of ourselves eh?

Sustainability is the name of the game, remember, we may have lots of fans, but a lot of them are paying concession rates - so the available cash isn't as much as some people think and with no benefactor behind us we'll have to set budgets accordingly - that might mean slower progress than some would like.

Btw, I'm now watching Step 4 football ;) !!!! I'm a happy bunny !!

Oh, and some wise words from Bunts !! http://m.northantstelegraph.co.uk/sport ... -1-6914096