A big "Non" to Non Park.

In the coming week our club officials (yeah, I know, but bear with me) will be trying to locate a suitable football ground for us to borrow to enable us to host Bedworth.  Obviously our new owners will have taken over before this game, (yeah, I know, but again, bear with me) and they may have some say as to where their new team actually play.

It would appear that a continued ground share at Corby, playing on Sundays is on the table, assuming the league allow us to do this, and, I guess, the opposition are happy to play then.  This option would appear to be better than than the reported offers to borrow either Leamington or St Neots, even though it is heartening that two clubs we have no history with us are prepared to make such a generous offer.

A worrying development is the prospect that Non Park may feature again in our future.  As far as can be ascertained Ladak is still paying some sort of rent.  The new investors are also reported to be in discussion with Cousins.  This would lead us to suspect that should anything actually happen with  buy-out or additional investment that Non Park would feature.  Obviously this would be good news for Imraan who can foist his crushing lease for the ground onto someone else, and hold on to his knee-caps.  Good news too for Cousins who gets a few more footballing paydays before ploughing the site under bulldozers in a couple of years time and putting up yet another warehouse.  It's possibly good news for any new investors who, electricity supply allowing, will have their shot at making Non Park earn money from it's "wonderful facilities". 

These amazing amenities include such ground-breaking features as -

• Lots of rooms - some with keys!
• Some rooms with power supplied to them!
• Occasional heating!
• Windows!
• Wonderful location, just outside a village in rural East Northants (voted the 596th best place to live in England in 1994!)
• Views of the pitch!
• Some working toilets!



We'll follow Alan Doyle's Poppy Army
anywhere.  Well, almost anywhere...

• At least one room with running water (not hot)

But is a possible re-relocation to Non Park any good for the supporters?  Between our first and last games as tenants of the place we have managed to lose at least 1200 supporters.  Of the 300 who made that last game at Bashley I'd wager not that many would be prepared to be forced to return there again.  It's no coincidence that over 50% more people turned up at the next game at Corby.  We never wanted to be at Non Park, and now we've managed to get away from the place the last thing we want is to be dragged back, screaming to that cursed soulless pit.

If any future owner has found themselves accidentally reading this I truly hope they will not be suckered in by the "glamour" of the Irthlingborough folly, and the stories of how the place is basically a cash cow that somehow has been mis-managed by everyone since Mad Max Griggs's days of wild spending.  It's a money pit.  Pure and simple.

We've escaped the bloody place.  Please God the few of us hanging in there with the Poppies aren't forced to choose between our Club and promising never to cross the Nonce Park threshold again.