The unofficial AFC Rushden & Diamonds messageboard

I’ve finally got round to reinstating my 2 monthly lottery tickets…. I cancelled them after the Maxwell appointment. I know of a few others that did as well. Has anyone got any idea how far we are aware from when the lottery was it it’s peak?

Once we get this shit show of a season over it would be good to give the lottery a big push going into pre season to give Nunn the best possible budget. I have full confidence that he won’t spunk the money on fancy vests or sticking young inexperienced defenders on contracts.

started mine a couple of weeks ago

No Chris treats the clubs money as if it was his own1 I agree that we need to push the lottery once again. When I was involved we had around 240 members at its height.

The old board have a lot to answer for in respect of our current financial position. I would love to know who signed off the 35% extra player budget under Burge, the ridiculous player contracts and a 5 figure GPS vest 'so called investment'.

But if we really want to save money then please get rid of the U21 & U23 squads which - Corden apart - have been a complete waste of time and a four figure drain on the clubs Academy finances. We already have a link with Moulton College so wouldn't it be better to link up with a step 5 club like Biff Carlin's Cogenhoe and use them as a feeder club? Why on earth the old 'regime' got rid of Biff is still a mystery to me when the Academy was so well run and productive under his tenure.

I just can’t believe this post. Chris, you’re a good guy but so wrong regarding the pathway and the importance of the u21s and 23s. We don’t need to use Cogenhoe or just rely only on using the Scholarship at Moulton for developing players, not all players want to progress and take higher education and playing football through that route. I hear from parents at the academy all the time and they love what we do and join the academy because of the pathway we provide.

So actually what you are saying Chris is bin off the 21s (which are funded within the academy) and the u23s which are cost neutral, And the money it provides put into the first team, so get academy players parents paying towards first team wages? The one thing we never said we would so as a club?

It would stop the only non league pathway in Northamptonshire to the first team for a child who starts with our academy at aged 10. (Wether they take our post 16 course or not) no other non league club in our area offers such a path it is currently one of our academy USP’s

Reform it by all means but don’t throw the baby out with the bath water because it used to be Maxwell’s part of the club.

I’ve also always been a big advocate of having a good relationship with step5 clubs, if a player is too good for our 23s but not quite good enough for our first team then we should loan them to a ucl team who will help them develop.

Diamond_ Wolf wrote: ↑Sat Mar 04, 2023 9:27 pm I’ve finally got round to reinstating my 2 monthly lottery tickets…. I cancelled them after the Maxwell appointment. I know of a few others that did as well. Has anyone got any idea how far we are aware from when the lottery was it it’s peak?

Once we get this shit show of a season over it would be good to give the lottery a big push going into pre season to give Nunn the best possible budget. I have full confidence that he won’t spunk the money on fancy vests or sticking young inexperienced defenders on contracts.

We are currently 25 away from peak which was achieved in October 2020. We haemorrhaged participants around the time of the EGM in November and ended up 25% down on peak level. We've clawed a good chunk of that back now but still some way to go.

We've got some ideas in the pipeline to push it.

The number of lottery participants never met the initial target, but got extremely close in October 2020.

Would it be an idea, without publishing the actual numbers if you didn't want to do that, to give an idea of how a single new signee can affect the budget?

For example (figures off the top of my head) ten new signees will give us an extra £50 on the budget.

It may encourage some who like to see a tangible way they are helping.

It would also be good to announce the amount won each time the draw is made across all of the social media platforms. I know it is put on the website, at least I’m pretty sure it is, but it is likely to reach a lot more people on the socials.

rickthediamond wrote: ↑Mon Mar 06, 2023 4:00 pm It would also be good to announce the amount won each time the draw is made across all of the social media platforms. I know it is put on the website, at least I’m pretty sure it is, but it is likely to reach a lot more people on the socials.

Or even go further and live stream the draw each month

rickthediamond wrote: ↑Mon Mar 06, 2023 4:00 pm It would also be good to announce the amount won each time the draw is made across all of the social media platforms. I know it is put on the website, at least I’m pretty sure it is, but it is likely to reach a lot more people on the socials.

It’s always been on the official website since day 1. Anyone can post threads on here too..but I’ll try to do it if nobody does it, though I create too many threads already. It can be added to the media & comma working groups tasks perhaps.