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RUSHDEN — The referee starts to blow his final whistle, but he and his assistants are already on the move. The locals, particularly those who have come to an AFC Rushden & Diamonds game at Hayden Road for the first time, have sensed the opportunity for a pitch invasion and have sat on advertising boardings throughout stoppage time. 

Two minutes later and half the pitch is covered. Many are holding plastic pint glasses, although many have been strewn aside to facilitate lifting up a white-shirted player or manager Elliot Sandy. He sits on shoulders above the throng, paraded like the trophy they could technically still win. “Leicester away, ole ole,” most of them sing.

It will not be Leicester away, although who cares really. I came to Rushden to help spread the gospel of why phoenix clubs are so brilliant. Semi-inadvertently I have landed upon this football club’s greatest ever day. You don’t get to see many triumphant pitch invasions live. You see even fewer in October.

Rushden & Diamonds held a special place in my teenage heart because of Championship Manager: Season 01-02, a cultural behemoth (for specifically my kind of people) the likes of which will never be surpassed. Rushden were a fourth tier English club with – crucially – comfortably the biggest transfer kitty in the division.

That allowed you to spend the first summer buying the names that were more familiar to you than your teachers at school and more dear to you than your extended family: Mike Duff, Michael Dunwell, To Madeira, Hugo Pinheiro, Scott Huckerby. You did a Scandi rain dance and prayed that making your nationality Swedish might persuade one of that glorious overpowered crop to up sticks and make a new life in Northamptonshire.

In reality, the Rushden & Diamonds story was more sombre than (Cherno) Samba. They rose through the divisions – four promotions in a decade – thanks to the ownership and investment of Max Griggs, owner of local company Dr Martens. In 2003-04, they played in the third tier with Brighton, Bournemouth and Brentford. Rushden lost eight of their last nine league games to be relegated on the final day.

And that’s roughly where an irrepressible rot set in. Rushden got too big, too quickly. The ground, Nene Park in Irthlingborough, was Championship standard but the club was losing money and Griggs eventually handed control to a Supporters’ Trust that had little hope of stopping the bleeding. Two more owners cut costs but never enough because the spiral had started.

In June 2011, eight years after promotion to the third tier, Rushden were expelled from the Conference National because they could not guarantee fulfilling fixtures. A month later, inevitable administration and then liquidation. It doesn’t happen often to former league clubs but once is too many: Rushden & Diamonds died.

Phoenix clubs must be cherished because of exactly how they are born. At the time of the worst crisis, when it feels like nobody else is helping enough, a group of people connected only by supporting a football team that now no longer exists come together. They put it upon themselves to work through nothing but love, loyalty, a sense of community and the weakest light at the end of a long tunnel.

Supporters formed AFC Rushden & Diamonds. They took on the administration for registering with the local Football Association and joining a league. They oversaw the creation of a “one member, one vote” constitution that exists to this day. They arranged the move to a new ground. They held trials for youth players and worked towards establishing a senior team within 12 months.

They had no experience and little expertise. They had other jobs and commitments. They faced roadblocks and stumbled along the way. And they achieved everything that they set out to do. In August 2012, AFC Rushden & Diamonds played their first match in United Counties League Division One. Nothing else mattered.

That work continues to this day. The aim was never overambitious, no talk of league football again please. Rushden are in the Northern Premier League Division One Midlands, the eighth tier of English football. They are still run by volunteers who are the heartbeat of the club and spent last week tidying up the stadium, producing a one-off matchday programme, arranging extra catering options and working with the council to manage unprecedented numbers of supporters.

In one sense this is nothing special at all. Up and down the country, an army of volunteers powers the football pyramid from the bottom up. It is, without doubt, the best thing about English football. Rarely is their work lauded by the outside world and more rarely still are they thanked. 

But this was still a landmark day. A year ago, AFC Rushden & Diamonds were eliminated from the FA Cup on 2 August in the extra preliminary round by Grimsby Borough. This year they set up a tie against Morecambe by knocking out five clubs: Kimberley Miners Welfare, Long Eaton United, Desborough Town, Peterborough Sports and Braintree Town. 

Morecambe are themselves a recent-ish League One team. They are huge favourites. On the way into the ground, a child turns to his father with wide-eyed amazement and says of the opposition: “Dad, they are full-time footballers”. It’s that sort of occasion. 

And it is an afternoon sent from heaven straight down to a tiny ground in a town in Northamptonshire. Sam Brown’s long throws cause carnage. The centre-backs win every header. Attacking midfielder Bruno Andrade, once of QPR and then a host of EFL clubs, is thoroughly enjoying rolling back the years, his forename chanted on repeat whenever he drifts out wide and within touching distance. James Clifton scores to send Hayden Road barmy. Three minutes later, Matty Warburton’s free-kick makes it 2-0 and everybody around me is losing their mind.

Joe Garner, now 38 and the scorer of more than 120 EFL goals, scores early in the second half and the onslaught predictably arrives. But Rushden are magnificent to a man, none more so than 22-year-old goalkeeper Charlie Woods. They tire badly but they still fight harder. The ball is kicked anywhere because, for at least 15 minutes, anywhere will do. And they get their moments of magic and their FA Cup first round draw.

Days like these matter so much. This FA Cup run has already provided at least £38,000 in prize money to Rushden, vital for a club at this level. Television coverage in the next round would give them even more. The ground was sold out on Saturday, six times the attendance of a home league game last month. Some of those will stick around. Kids will ask parents if they can go back to Hayden Road. The spotlight shines briefly but the glow provides a residual warmth. 

The FA Cup has taken AFC Rushden & Diamonds on an unthinkable journey, but nothing really changes. Somehow that is the best bit. On a cold Monday morning, a group of volunteers met at the home turnstile at Hayden Road. The job: clean up the ground that played host to a Saturday afternoon like no other. After all, who else is going to do it?

That’s how the English pyramid is powered: by bin liners, cold Monday mornings and a collection of people who act as the wind beneath the wings of hundreds of community institutions.

I went to Nene Park back in 2004, just as the dark clouds were forming. It was a Championship Manager pilgrimage really, the home of my mythical super team just an hour or so down the road. I hardly thought that I’d be back in such different circumstances: different club, different people, different ground, different town.

But I’m so glad that I did. It’s an oft-repeated line, but the greatest privilege of this job is that every match you attend might just be the best or worst day of each club’s year. In the case of AFC Rushden & Diamonds, it was the greatest day in their history, reaching the FA Cup first round for the first time. They’re going to Wembley with Elliot Sandy, as they chanted before kick off. Obviously not. But still possibly.