Nathan Tyson, a player very well known to us for his antics in the past, signed the death warrant that looks to have finally sent us back to non league obscurity after five years of punching above our weight in the Football League.

The warrant has been passed around various games in the latter part of this disastrous season.  Lincoln were the first to catch sight of it when they beat us three nil at Sincil Bank back in October but it appears that nobody then recognised it for what it was except Jan Molby who decided on that day to quit as the Harriers manager.

It next made an appearance a month later when Boston came to Aggborough and put four past us and proved that Shaun Cunnington was not the man to get us out of the mess we were heading for.  The Grim Reaper dug the warrant out again for the visit of Swansea City on Boxing Day when we were destroyed in a ten minute spell at the end of the game but then put it away for a while as performances improved and results started to pick up a bit under the leadership of the new manager, Stuart Watkiss.

Then one fateful day in Slop, or is it Shropshire, Darren Moss picked it up while waiting for a couple of corners to come over.  On that day we looked doomed and rightfully so.

Last Saturday Simon Brown, once of this parish, found a pen that Wayne Hatswell had dropped in the dressing room and gave it to Nathan Tyson, "Here you are Nath, you might want to use this next week"


It was such a lovely day too.  The travelling fans were in good voice and the fifteen minute rendition of the Great Escape bought a tear to the eye of grown men and women.  The teams came out and our lot heard our song and thought "Bugger them, we're only here for the money"

Right from the very first minute we were an absolute shambles and the game from our point of view was utterley and totally forgettable.  Hatswell playing suicide in the left back position again was caught out far too far upfield by Tyson who had no problem leaving him behind in a burst of speed to slot the ball past an exposed John Danby for the first goal.

The second goal was a cock up between Hatswell and Johnny Mullins when they couldn't make up their mind which one of them was going to tackle Ty.  Tysons hand into the chest of Mullins wasn't strictly above board and should have been penalised but the ref ignored it and Tyson sped through to put another one past the hapless Danby again.

After a hell of a long wait for the Reds to come back out of the dressing room there was a bit of a surprise.  Stuey had been reading Jan Molby's autobiography and sent on all three subs in one go.

Christie and Birch literally rolled onto the pitch in place of Marke Rawle and Beardo.  Billy Jones, a left back, came on for Wayne Hatswell, not a left back.

Mr Tyson continued to rip us to pieces.

The triple subbing was probably not the right thing to do looking back on the game because we still failed to play as a team and I think the mid game overhaul was too much to cope with.  A better move would have been to go with the Jones/Hatswell swap and leave Beardo and Rawle on and start to play the ball on the ground instead of the cosmically launched balls we had in the first half.  Later on in the game we could have bought on Benny the Ball and his mate to salvage something from the ashes.

The third, and thankfully final, goal came from a moment of hesitation by Dean Keates when he was caught in possession by Tyson who easily robbed him to put the ball past John again.

Moments earlier John had pulled off the save of the game when he somehow managed to push a Tyson shot onto the crossbar, something that Talia in the Wycombe goal was never called on to do.

As usual Rushden got their late goals at home to Yeovil and are now five points in front of us.  A points difference that I can't see us ever making up.


On the way out of the ground Nathan Tyson was seen stood by a post box slipping a large envelope addressed to the FA into the slot.