Football in Northamptonshire is in a bad way. Northampton Town, who enjoyed a brief spell in the top flight, are threatened with relegation to the Conference. Rushden and Diamonds, the product of one man’s vision, are no more (apart from a phoenix club) having reached League 1. Their Nene Park stadium lies quietly rusting, perhaps to be eventually replaced by housing.
Football in Northamptonshire is in a bad way. Northampton Town, who enjoyed a brief spell in the top flight, are threatened with relegation to the Conference. Rushden and Diamonds, the product of one man’s vision, are no more (apart from a phoenix club) having reached League 1. Their Nene Park stadium lies quietly rusting, perhaps to be eventually replaced by housing. Kettering Town, who came close to being elected to the Football League in 1974, are in the fourth tier of non-league football and are playing at Burton Latimer, having been unable to continue to afford their lease of Nene Park.
Northamptonshire is a prosperous county, particularly Northampton itself, although some of the small industrial towns in the east of the county have never fully recovered from the decline of the boot and shoe industry. There are some attractive villages, as attractive as those in the Cotswolds with which they share the use of honey coloured stone, but they are a less fashionable location despite good access to the motorway network.
The Cardoza family have owned Northampton Town for eleven years. They came from London and they picked the Cobblers because they saw an underachieving club with a decent stadium and a catchment area that had potential. With council help, they are now putting in a hotel and conference centre and adding the first corporate boxes. Coventry City are currently playing their home games there.
In eleven years, they have been through as many managers and spent an estimated £8m. Chairman David Cardoza told the Financial Times, ‘We used to be in finance. Now it’s the reverse. It goes against everything you think is right because the economics of the game are barking mad. Income and expenditure don’t match.’
Northampton’s most successful sports club is its rugby club, but that doesn’t explain the relative lack of sucess of the football team. Perhaps once again it shows that the relationship between the economic condition of a locality and football success is an uncertain one. Burnley offer an example in the opposite direction.