[ Sat 11th Aug ] v Redditch Utd, KO 3pm ESPC HOME

[Dazzler]

Official Match Preview

http://www.afcdiamonds.com/afc-rushden- ... 1th-august

[Formic]

It will be a memorable day seeing the club perform at Step 3 level for the first time - and credit to everyone who made it happen. It will be interesting to see how many turn up, given we are in the heart of holiday season - but we may have to wait until week 7 of the season before we see another Saturday home game to get a chance to compare "like-with-like" attendances.

Our first game at Step 4 brought in 530 in Wellingborough, so you'd have to hope that being in Rushden will bump that up somewhat at this higher level.

Regarding the team and formation, I don't know what will work at this level, but we can look back at last season where we looked pretty average in many games until the switch at half-time against Moneyfields - proving that the management team are prepared to adapt.

[Mad Dog]

Redditch manager looking to try and start with a win, so hopefully will make for a good game:

http://www.redditchadvertiser.co.uk/spo ... ew-season/

Although no one is expecting much since this is very much a season of consolidation, there’s no point points counting. Just go into every fixtures with a positive outlook and see where it takes us, regardless of the opposition.

[BartonRaz]

Former Aston Villa and St Neots striker Stefan Moore has signed for Redditch this morning.

[davealbon]

Former Aston Villa and St Neots striker Stefan Moore has signed for Redditch this morning.

Let's hope that, at 34, he's lost the scoring touch he showed so prolifically for St Neots not too many years ago. His record for them was phenomenal!

[sussexdiamond]

Sounds like Redditch manager is getting his excuses in early. As for us I think the starting eleven is reasonably clear, subject to player fitness. It is the formation that is a bigger question. We only have 16/17 registered players so may need at some point to use some of the Academy players. Will Ty Ward be signed up before Saturday

[Mad Dog]

Season preview from Banbury United’s in-house radio, previewing all the teams and trying to be balanced. Well worth a listen:

[mikerd]

Looking forward to the league season starting tomorrow.

Going for 2-1 Diamonds, att 593.

[BartonRaz]

I thought we might win today but I certainly wasn’t expecting that. We were sensational for 70 minutes and they had no answer.

Seems almost unfair to single anyone out but Ben Diamond was brilliant, they simply couldn’t deal with him. Bowen and Hicks looked a lot better than they did at any point in pre-season too. Credit to the management for the formation and game plan, it worked a treat. It was also great to see us cope well defensively in Dolman’s absence until multiple changes were made.

I’d expect Redditch to be in serious trouble this season on that evidence so it’ll be interesting to see how they get on in their next couple of games. Tuesday night will be interesting for us given Biggleswade have won away at King’s Lynn today. That’ll give us a better indication of where we’re at than today’s game.

[Olly]

It's funny, before today I was expecting to be decent in defence but to struggle for goals with the loss of Gyasi, Fairlamb and Robbins, but I don't think I could have been proved more wrong, what an amazing start to life at step 3!

I'd assume that Redditch are better than what they showed today, the start of the season is never a great indicator as to how a team will do throughout the season and to be fair to them they did create a number of chances and we weren't as in control in the second half as much as we were the first half. But the last few seasons show them to be a well established club at this level and few seasons ago were pushing towards the top of the league, so for us to come up into this level and what I'm sure will be the biggest jump up in quality we've had in our short history and do that to them is seriously impressive and encouraging

Not quite top of the league with Needham Market's result today, but it does mean that for today (and possibly not for long) for the first time in our short history, we are above them from up the road, only 6 years after we reformed 5 tiers below them, not bad!