Diamonds Aren't Forever: Rushden & Diamonds in a Critical Condition

At a creditors’ meeting last week, Rushden & Diamonds CEO Steve Beasant could not provide an answer to a straightforward question: what is the total debt of the football club? His son Liam, the club chairman, was not even present. It was a meeting intended to reassure those owed money, including one local firm understood to be waiting on £60,000, yet reports from attendees suggest it could not have gone much worse. Instead of offering a clear path to repayment, the club’s management seemingly asked creditors to propose their own solutions to the mess.

This is the grim reality at Nene Park just six months after the arrival of a new ownership group. Gary Calder, a name familiar from financial collapses at Hornchurch and Weymouth, arrived as chairman in December alongside Steve Beasant and his son Liam. Their company, PB Devs, promised to base itself at the ground and offer sports industry qualifications, a plan that appeared to offer the club a stable footing. That plan, however, has unravelled with alarming speed.

An Unpaid Tax Bill

The first signs of trouble emerged in January. By March, PB Devs was not fully trading from Nene Park and Calder had resigned as chairman, passing the role to Liam Beasant. It then became clear the club was under a transfer embargo from the Football Conference due to an unpaid tax bill. This was swiftly followed by a five-point deduction for filing inaccurate financial information.

The club’s public statements have sought to lay the blame for the tax bill on the previous regime under Calder, a curious defence given his close association with the Beasants and the fact that Liam Beasant was vice-chairman at the time. Former owner Keith Cousins, for his part, has maintained that he left the club debt-free in December. The situation is further complicated by a winding-up petition brought by Cloverdale Catering, which is scheduled to be heard at the High Court in London on the thirteenth of June. If the club was debt-free when the new owners took over, has not been paying its tax bill and, as has since been revealed, has failed to pay its players on time, the question of where the money has gone hangs heavy in the air.

Players Unpaid, Supporters Concerned

The failure to meet the wage bill has become a particularly sorry episode. For two months, players’ salaries were reportedly paid by the supporters’ representative on the club’s board. It is understood she received written assurances that she would be repaid in full, but has not yet seen a penny of it back. Since then, the club’s failure to pay the squad has continued, to the point where players apparently considered strike action. Such a state of affairs is not only farcical but morally reprehensible.

The best guess for the club’s current debts is a figure in the region of £750,000, though sources have described even this as speculative. In a bizarre turn, the club has called a Supporters Forum for tonight, which will be chaired by the former owner, Keith Cousins, ostensibly to prevent the meeting from being “used as an opportunity to attack the current Directors”. The official announcement is a pathetic document, stating, “The meeting is to discuss the Club’s position, and the need for all to step up to help save the Club”.

The club’s position is perfectly evident to anyone paying attention.

The appeal for everyone to “step up” should give supporters pause for thought. Is the aim to save Rushden & Diamonds, or is it to prop up an ownership group whose five-month tenure has been defined by chaos and a lack of transparency? It looks from the outside as if the last six months have been managed either incompetently or dishonestly. Supporters’ groups are already mobilising to fundraise and publicise the club’s plight, but they face an enormous task. Tonight’s forum may at least offer a clearer picture of just how bad things really are at Nene Park, but clarity has been in short supply for some time.