The accepted wisdom in our division is that the Poppies are wildly over-spending to try to win the league. Those "in the know" know that our promotion push is costing the lofty, and conveniently neat total of £10,000 per week. And that was before Dan Holman signed for us, so God alone knows what our rivals consider our weekly budget now? £20,000? £50,000?
Money and non-league football have always been uneasy bedfellows. We know this more than most. Imraan's attempt at buying footballing immortality went far beyond the income the Poppies could have possibly generated. His Poppies adventure that saw us briefly at the top of the Conference before plummeting three divisions in a little over 12 months won't soon be forgotten. This is the main reason I don't believe we will ever go down the road of utter unsustainability again. A number of the fans who fought tooth and nail behind the scenes to rescue us from our Non Park / Steal Park Season of Hell are now in positions of authority within the Club, and on the Management Board. There's simply no way they would allow us to slither down that same path.
Money does remain a thorny issue though. Several years ago, when the club set-up an online fund to raise 20K towards getting us out of the Non Park lease, which was about to throttle the life out of us, the total was quickly secured by fans of the Poppies as well as other clubs. Even though the majority was raised from amongst our own ranks, every Kettering fan will always be grateful for the contributions from supporters of other clubs. We survived. We rebuilt. We settled at Latimer Park. We started to fight back. A heart-warming story you'd think? Except for a handful of opposition supporters, who, seemingly believed that because they chipped a few quid towards our survival that the Poppies would never sign another good player, or ever dare to try to win promotion! Presumably we should have just been grateful for ever and looked forward to annual visits to North Greenford United for the remainder of time?
What funds non-league clubs generate usually go towards the playing staff. They have to. An army of volunteers help fill most of the other roles around the club. Do some of our rivals imagine the Poppies are any different in this respect? There also seems to be some kind of "Badge of Honour" in being seen to have a small playing budget, but this is usually by clubs that have very few fans - Mmmm, I think I've solved that one.....!
Our loudest finance detractors really should know better though. The hollow piousness of the AFC Scum-lite fans simply takes my breathe away. As we all know, they've re-formed as some sort of people's utopia of footballing democracy. And like any reformed addict, the are ball-breakingly zealous when it comes to pontificating on other club's assumed budgetary shortcomings!
AFC Scum-lite spend so much time voting on the colour of their underwear, and polishing their pennies that they have conveniently forgotten the pivotal role their former incarnation played in destroying the ethos of the non-league game. Non-league had jogged happily along for more than a century, paying part-time wages, sticking a few extra quid in the socks of the start players, having moderate floodlights and drinking bovril.
And then Uncle Max had a dream, and (for a while) the bank balance to back it. Just how a village team built a multi-million pound stadium, bought players for six figure sums, and had a full-time squad at this level are minor historical details that Direones supporters fans rapidly gloss over as they lecture the rest of football about the merits of their all-inclusive, East-Northants Soccer Soviet.
Their hypocrisy is truly breathtaking. Let's be in no doubt, by setting themselves up as AFC Rushden & Diamonds they are honouring their former incarnation, who did so much harm to the "part-time" game. For them to re-use the most despised moniker in football, while lecturing everyone about their financial prudence, serves nothing other than to grind the gears of every other non-league fan.
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