The unofficial AFC Rushden & Diamonds messageboard

......we're competing against Kidderminster, Mansfield, Cambridge United etc, or Dartford, Basingstoke, Staines OR even Bedford Town, Oxford City, Evesham Town next season, I don't care - I'm just keeping my fingers, legs and toes crossed that have a football club to support, the level we're at (BSP, BSN, or the Zameratto Premier) is immaterial - please football gods, let us survive as a club during what I'm seeing as troubled couple of months ahead.

I thought the performance by the players yesterday was terrific, they played as if they were all trying to impress someone ;) Credit where its due, they competed with a side pushing hard for the play-offs and beat them - if only we'd done that 3 or 4 times this season against lesser opposition what might have been eh?

If over the summer we lose Justin or the majority (or all) of the squad, I think that this season, for me at least, they have helped to bring the enjoyment back to visiting Nene Park for matches - for that I say a massive thank you. If they all leave I wish them well, collectively and individually.

For me the season is over now, I can't make it to Darlington. I predicted a 10th place finish and we're a gnats fart away from that - so for me, mission achieved. Well done all !!

With Justin dedicating the win on Monday to the fans and giving his mini speach At the awards presentation, praising his players and staff, you get this inner gutting feeling that the club will let the majority of them walk in the summer.

It's payday for them all this week and I think they will be lucky to get 50% of their salary. I hope I am wrong but with dumb and dumber at the helm I think the future is bleak!

Things can only get better right?

garya2414 wrote:With Justin dedicating the win on Monday to the fans and giving his mini speech at the awards presentation, praising his players and staff, you get this inner gutting feeling that the club will let the majority of them walk in the summer.

It's payday for them all this week and I think they will be lucky to get 50% of their salary. I hope I am wrong but with dumb and dumber at the helm I think the future is bleak!

*gulps*

Come on Beasents pull a rabbit out of the hat FFS, don't let our best hope of league football go along with this great squad! I hate this feeling of utter powerlessness. :(

Sara Pascoe wrote:
Come on Beasents pull a rabbit out of the hat FFS.....

They've been doing that since they took over by getting other people to give (or loan) them money to pay wages and other outstanding bills :evil:

Come on Beasents pull a rabbit out of the hat FFS, don't let our best hope of league football go along with this great squad! I hate this feeling of utter powerlessness.

We are down to about 1,000 fans willing to part with money to watch us play and without a major sponsor putting big and i'm talking big money in forget the dream of League Football.

Part time is looking closer and closer, with maybe and i say maybe we may go the route of a pre-packaged administration which clears debts but allows the same owners to restart most likley down a League to begin a slow rebuilding process.

Unless we have any local or large business people willing to step into the breach and maybe try to prise the Beasents out we have to just have to keeping hoping they do have a plan ( :roll: ) and its just not crossing fingers and stroking rabbits feet.

The problem with going down a league is that it will hit attendences (we would lose over 500 off the current gate) and they will be forced to drop prices. That's not speculation, that's a fact. It could go the way of Scarborough, who tried a similar thing and now only exist as a phoenix club very far down the football pyramid.

Good Post piggers , hope to see you at matches at Nene Park next season but at the England c before that

Such a shame considering we were so close to the football league just a year ago, who know what might have happened if we had gone up. But its obvious now that the football league is a million miles away for the club. Even if we're in the BSBP next season, the league is getting tougher and tougher each year with pretty much half the league all ex league teams hoping to go up, we'll have a tiny budget compared to most of the league again and the possibility of having a new manager and squad, so it would take a miracle for us to be even able to think about promotion, mid table BSBP mediocrity is the best we can hope for in the next few years if we were to stay here.

Going down a league or 2 is not necessarily the end of the world, obviously at first we'd see poor attendances of 500/600 (if we're lucky) but Chester and FC Halifax with the success they've achieved have got better attendances than when they were in the BSBP, we'd obviously have to do well to ourselves to get those results.

Olly wrote:Such a shame considering we were so close to the football league just a year ago, who know what might have happened if we had gone up. But its obvious now that the football league is a million miles away for the club. Even if we're in the BSBP next season, the league is getting tougher and tougher each year with pretty much half the league all ex league teams hoping to go up, we'll have a tiny budget compared to most of the league again and the possibility of having a new manager and squad, so it would take a miracle for us to be even able to think about promotion, mid table BSBP mediocrity is the best we can hope for in the next few years if we were to stay here.

Going down a league or 2 is not necessarily the end of the world, obviously at first we'd see poor attendances of 500/600 (if we're lucky) but Chester and FC Halifax with the success they've achieved have got better attendances than when they were in the BSBP, we'd obviously have to do well to ourselves to get those results.

Those two clubs had to die before they could come back as phoenix clubs, and Chester are at least five years away from the Conference, assuming they have five promotions in a row.

I honestly think dropping a division at this moment in time will kill the club.