Fan-owned AFC Rushden & Diamonds face Burton Albion in 'biggest game in our history'

AFC Rushden & Diamonds, the fan-owned phoenix club formed in 2011, face League One Burton Albion on Saturday in the FA Cup first round proper — a fixture their chairman Rob Usher calls the biggest game in the club’s history, with 2,000 supporters making the trip.

The Diamonds earned their place in the first round with a 2-1 victory over Morecambe, a result that prompted scenes of pitch-invasion euphoria at Hayden Road. Usher, who describes himself simply as “a fan who put his hand up to help when the club was in crisis”, was the first person over the barriers when the final whistle blew.

“It was genuinely euphoric,” Usher said. “We’ve recently installed a digital scoreboard with a clock, and I almost wished we hadn’t because I was watching those seconds tick away. It was pure elation when the whistle went.”

What struck him most, however, was the tone of the messages he received in the days that followed. “In the two weeks leading up to the game, people had been coming up to congratulate us. That day, though, people weren’t saying well done. They were saying thank you. For me, that’s incredibly powerful. It was humbling, sobering, and it’s something that will stay with me forever.”

The club’s story stretches back to the collapse of the original Rushden & Diamonds, who reached the third tier of English football and twice appeared in the FA Cup third round before financial difficulties ended their Football League existence. The phoenix club, formed by supporters in 2011, hit its own crisis in 2022, when Usher and vice-chairman Alex Raspin stepped in to lead the recovery.

Their cup run began in the extra preliminary round in early August, and the community spirit that defines the club has been visible at every stage. The day before the Morecambe match, around 60 volunteers arrived to paint, weed and prepare the ground — some having taken annual leave, one arriving straight from a night shift.

“There is also a woman whose husband and son have been coming to matches for several years,” Usher added. “Over the past year she’d started attending games herself. Then I looked around at the game and saw her working as a volunteer.” It is that kind of story, he suggests, that explains why the FA Cup still carries genuine meaning for clubs operating far below the top flight.