Membership

[sussexdiamond]

Now this may be strange and may be considered off thread but...

Renegotiate with Wellingborough. Larger catchment are, clubhouse that we can support by volunteering to run. Food already there and be able to serve beer in Dale bar. Area for children to play football. Plenty of parking. Overall a good match day experience that may result in membership increasing again.

Remember we didn't leave Wellingborough by choice. It was that idiot of a landlord who thought he could build on a flood plain that told us to go. We spent a lot of money and man hours on the D and D (certainly plenty of my hours) and then had to do it all again at Hayden Road. One of our first priorities for next season is to geto a food outlet like Burger Monster back in place. And in the same place if possible. Personally I have never had a problem parking but that could change if we had bigger crowds. But we certainly need to engage the youngsters and their parents. Another possible area is to engage more with the Womens team. Do they exist?. The growth of the women's game is bringing footie to a section of the community that has generally been ignored. At Lewes they get crowds of several hundred to watch them and it has brought publicity and sponsorship to that club.

[bozzer]

There are two womens teams but we can’t play more than one team on the pitch, again another thing that won’t be a thing with our own ground.

Our new ground needs to have the womens the community teams the academy teams all able to play on it.

[diamondsteve]

The toilets - obvious unless you like walking through piss.

Can you clarify? As one of the volunteers that cleans & restocks the outside stadium ones (before and after all matches - they are only used for AFCRD matches), these are kept clean at all times. So not quite sure what the issue is.

The u bend was leaking under the urinals, either that or some dirty git

[Diamond_ Wolf]

I’ve been a member since the club formed however I forgot to renew this season; it may help if renewal invitations are sent out to existing members and followed up (I appreciate this is time consuming)
I’d happily renew but like others have said I feel there is no real attraction or incentive to being a member. I pay £20 a month into the lottery scheme and feel I’m making more of a contribution doing that.
In regards to Hayden Rd I echo others, Hayden Rd isn’t particularly child friendly in terms of watching the game and there is limited space around the pitch. Obviously nothing can be done about that however I’m sure a community focused ground would appeal more to families and kids alike!?
From a personally point of view, I’ve attended about 6 games this season and that’s with having a season ticket. I’d love to having attended more but personal circumstances and having a young family have made it difficult. In terms of the attendances as whole, I believe there’s so many factors to why fans aren’t coming through the turnstiles, all of which have been mentioned in this thread. We certainly need to engage with younger fans somehow as we have an ageing fan base!

[oliv272]

We certainly need to engage with younger fans somehow as we have an ageing fan base!

There was such a buzz about AFC R&D when the club was first founded, so many people I knew (young adults) showing an interest in the new club, many of which had no real interest in the old club. Somewhere along the line in recent years the momentum has really been killed off, I think part of it could be the lack of 'big games' the FA Cup runs a few years back used to get a great amount of interest (remember when we had over 1k in for the Barwell replay) or the amount of fans we took to Latimer park on New Years Day(?) a few years back. For whatever reason despite the success of this season that interest hasn't really built up, personally, I've mostly been to away games this season just because it tends to end up being a better day out than visiting Hayden Road.

We need to run some community type days, get some promotions running like Redditch had for Non League Day. Get more teenagers into the ground, we had a load of them turn up for the Hilliar Cup game against K*ttering but these sorts of big fixtures that provide an attraction to fans on their own merit are far and few apart for us these days at this level. When I was in school during the 9/10 play off season everyone at school was talking about the games and asking around to see who was going to be there, it was incredible. Currently, it feels like an ageing board is supporting an ageing fanbase at a declining club and this is in despite of the brilliant success we are having this season in the league.

Slightly off topic but wonder if we could get some decent music playing during half time and before kick off to help build the atmosphere, whatever happened to the Hi Ho Rushden & Diamonds song that used to be played at Nene Park before matches couldn't we play that again?

I don't have any answers and this post is a bit of an unhelpful ramble, but something has gone badly wrong in recent years we have all the ingredients to be one of the bigger clubs in this league but at the moment our trajectory looks like we will end up being one of the smallest supported clubs in the league.

[bozzer]

Just had a look at attendances

2021/22 - 409 assume this is likely to go up a bit especially with playoffs
2020/21 - 377 covid season
2019/20 - 458 covid season
2018/19 - 561 1st at step 3 with K*ttering game
2017/18 - 500 promotion from step 4

[Trek]

Currently, it feels like an ageing board is supporting an ageing fanbase at a declining club and this is in despite of the brilliant success we are having this season in the league.

Totally agree and as one of those ‘ageing’ fans, currently with a season ticket, who travels a 45 mile round trip to each home game, I’m dismayed to see a complete lack of desire from the younger generation half my age, apart of course from a couple of notable people in our media team and a recent hardworking elected board member.
I have spoken to the odd younger person at matches who was complaining that the Board should be doing this and that and asked the question why they havn’t put their name forward to be told they havn’t got the time.
The younger fan base cannot continue to ‘sit on their hands’ and I put down the challenge now for some some new blood to throw their hat into the ring when Board Elections come round in the next few months and ask them to get involved otherwise there is a danger that we could go the way of Northampton Spencer.

[BartonRaz]

Currently, it feels like an ageing board is supporting an ageing fanbase at a declining club and this is in despite of the brilliant success we are having this season in the league.

Totally agree and as one of those ‘ageing’ fans, currently with a season ticket, who travels a 45 mile round trip to each home game, I’m dismayed to see a complete lack of desire from the younger generation half my age, apart of course from a couple of notable people in our media team and a recent hardworking elected board member.
I have spoken to the odd younger person at matches who was complaining that the Board should be doing this and that and asked the question why they haven’t put their name forward to be told they haven’t got the time.
The younger fan base cannot continue to ‘sit on their hands’ and I put down the challenge now for some some new blood to throw their hat into the ring when Board Elections come round in the next few months and ask them to get involved otherwise there is a danger that we could go the way of Northampton Spencer.

As someone that probably sneaks in to that category (although I don't feel particularly young any more!), I don't think we can dismiss the 'haven't got the time' line when it comes to being on the board. Often the people I think you're maybe getting at are starting families, making their way in their careers. They don't have the time on their hands that people 50+ might. They don't have the time to sit through board meetings and couldn't do the role justice or give it the time it deserves or requires.

What I would say though is that you don't need to be on the board to contribute in some way if you can, because despite what I've just said above, everybody has got 2hrs a month to spare.

On a separate point it's really sad to see the fanbase openly being critical of how things are run at the club when on the pitch, the club is at it's highest point. That's not me saying I agree/disagree with any of it and plenty of these comments are really interesting and thought provoking, but at one point in time we were all united in grief having lost our club, united in wanting the club to reform, and over the years the goodwill and good feeling around the club has ebbed away. That's not all on the board, but for a guy like Matt Parker who gave so much to the club to feel the way he does, is damning in my opinion.

[real diamond]

The main stand for me - looks an absolute eyesore and takes away what would be a good vantage point to watch football and having that back in some capacity would enhance the overall matchday experience for fans.

Is there not something we could do to get this back in order with the help of Rushden & Higham?

Any move to a new ground is likely to be a few years away and we need to do something asap to make the matchday experience something like it was in Wellingborough.

[Trek]

As someone that probably sneaks in to that category (although I don't feel particularly young any more!), I don't think we can dismiss the 'haven't got the time' line when it comes to being on the board. Often the people I think you're maybe getting at are starting families, making their way in their careers. They don't have the time on their hands that people 50+ might. They don't have the time to sit through board meetings and couldn't do the role justice or give it the time it deserves or requires.

What I would say though is that you don't need to be on the board to contribute in some way if you can, because despite what I've just said above, everybody has got 2hrs a month to spare.

I accept what you are saying about the ‘time issue’ and do not dismiss all the pressures that modern living brings, careers, family etc to a younger generation. However, the fact you can’t dismiss is that unless a younger generation does get involved then the Club will wither and die or only exist at a very low football level along the lines of our current landlords. Don’t forget people of my age have experienced all the pressures you mention and grappled with the problems it presents but, from a personal perspective, I still managed to carry out unpaid administrative/committee duties with football, squash, athletic and cycling clubs at various times which I found very rewarding. We previously had a couple of younger Club Secretaries from a younger age group who performed admirably but when they felt they could no longer continue another existing experienced Board Member had to effectively double up their work load - not ideal. Perhaps a younger person could shadow or assist and the same applies with the Commercial role where all the pressure appears to be on one person. We have already lost our long serving Vice Chairman to be followed shortly by our Chairman who have both worked extremely hard since the Club’s formation.
Whilst older fans may less commitments especially those approaching retirement or actually retired you must not overlook the fact that with experience comes less energy, enthusiasm and often accompanied old age health issues that have an effect on the ability to perform.