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The Northampton Town Football Club
experience spanning the final decade of the Millennium was as eventful as
any in the club’s 100-year history.
Arguably, it was on a par with the incredible rise and fall of the swinging
Sixties side which spent one memorable season in the old First Division.
The club’s rollercoaster ride during the nervous Nineties was maybe not as
exhilarating as that during the Sixties. But it was certainly a good deal
scarier.
This was no waltzer through the divisions, rather the contemplation of the
gloomy drop into the black hole and out of the Football League.
The spectre of administration at Northampton Town also sat very uneasily
with the emergence of a glittering rival a few miles down the road, as
Rushden & Diamonds FC were given a shoe into the big time on the back of the
Doc Martens millions.
A chairman with no money to put into the club was overthrown in favour of
another who was required to take money out.
It required the financial acumen of a hockey-loving accountant from
Worcester to drag the club away from total meltdown.
In the meantime, the fans were made to endure a gut-wrenching afternoon at
Shrewsbury, numb embarrassment at Chesterfield a year later and then
miraculously, within just three years, two Wembley days out under the highly
focused if one-dimensional Mr Fixit management of Ian Atkins.
Thrown into the decade mix, for good measure, was a nightmare campaign -
when a large and talented squad literally split apart – the advent of a
revolutionary supporter movement, a new ground, a centenary celebration and
the search for a legend.
This was no ordinary time but then of course this was no ordinary football
club. Welcome to the world of the extraordinary Northampton Town. |
