Despite building gates up to around 4,500, Rushden & Diamonds have been heavily reliant financially on Griggs and his company. The accounts they did deliver, the previous year, for 2002, showed that the R Griggs Group had loaned the club £611,000, that Griggs himself had made an interest-free loan of £500,000, and in 2002-03 the R Griggs Group provided £2.25m in sponsorship. David Suddens, the chief executive of the R Griggs Group and, temporarily, of the club, too, said this deal would give the club its best chance for the future, stressing: “Nene Park will not be ploughed up by ruthless property developers.”The club and the supporters it gathered in the days of plenty await the new investors and their plans. That followed a £32m loss they made the previous year, as Doc Martens struggled to translate their formidable street cred into a commercially profitable global brand.In October 2002, R Griggs announced that they were closing their shoe and bootmaking factories here and shifting production to China, where workers come cheaper.

Rushden fell apart, took only one point from those final games and on the final day lost 2-0 at home to Port Vale to be relegated, while Chesterfield hopped improbably above them and escaped the drop.The withdrawal of Griggs’ financial backing and the sale of the club follow a rough period even for a company as laced into the nation’s fashion and subcultures as Dr Martens. The most recent accounts of the R Griggs Group, which owns the shoemaking businesses worldwide, show that for the year to 31 March 2003, the company made a loss of £60m, which included the considerable cost of wholesale restructuring, and turnover fell by £54m. With the club struggling to find other investment, they considered going into administration, but instead cut costs by off-loading players.On transfer deadline day, 25 March, Rushden were in mid-table with just eight games to play, but they released four of their most highly-rated players to reduce the wage bill: winger Paul Hall went to Tranmere on a free transfer; top-scoring striker Onandi Lowe to Coventry City for free; defender and captain Paul Underwood, to LutonTown; and Marcus Bignot, to Queen’s Park Rangers. There are still diehard fans of those clubs who resent what was done, but they were drowned out by the sheer industrial scale with which a brand new, attractive ground was constructed and the new entity financially hurtled into the Southern League Premier Division in 1994, the Conference in 1996, then, after more of a footballing struggle than was envisaged, promotion to the Football League five seasons later.However, Rushden’s air-cushioned stomp on the football pyramid skidded to a halt last October when Griggs stepped down as the chairman and said he wanted to pull out and pass the club on. The club’s own accounts, which were due at the end of March, have not even been filed, which is an embarrassment, but in fact, Griggs set a deadline of the end of the season to withdraw his funding. With Darlington tottering on the brink of folding, in administration and millions in debt to their owner and former chairman George Reynolds, and the nation’s top clubs prostrating themselves to ever more far-fetched investors, Rushden & Diamonds has mutated from the model club to a monument to the dangers of relying on sugar daddies, men formerly known as benefactors, funding clubs way beyond their true status.Griggs, the multi-millionaire backer who was previously on the board at Northampton Town, created Rushden & Diamonds by merging Rushden Town and Irthlingborough Diamonds, using Rushden’s more senior status in the football pyramid, and Diamonds’ better-appointed ground at Nene Park. So English football emerges from its boom period since 1992 in which 36 clubs, exactly half the Football League’s 72, have been insolvent, with something it considers a result..

They were hailed as the small-town innocents romantically facing down the big guns when in January 1999 Rushden & Diamonds, then a Conference club, drew 0-0 in the FA Cup Third round with Leeds, then a Premiership club about to live the dream. In truth, Rushden & Diamonds were always a strange being, created with bags of money out of the original merger of two minor non-league clubs, and funded for a gallop into the Football League by Max Griggs, the owner of the Dr Martens shoe empire which had a huge presence in that area of Northamptonshire. However, they supported the recent High Court decision that, read strictly, the settlement of football creditors in full does not breach insolvency law. Three Law Lords, including the Lord Chief Justice, Lord Woolf – who declared his interest as a longstanding Leeds fan – have yet to deliver their reasons. Nevertheless, there has been severe criticism that the rule is immoral, and accountants’ opinion that it is illegal, because it supersedes the order in which creditors are ranked by insolvency legislation. At Bradford, who collapsed in May 2002, 36 workers in club shops were sacked, substantial public money was owed to local authorities, and more than £5,000 to St John Ambulance.

The All Party Parliamentary Football Group called earlier this year for the rule to be scrapped.However, this week, the Inland Revenue lost its appeal against the Company Voluntary Arrangement at Wimbledon, where the tax man is receiving 30p on the pound. However, the bountifully rewarded players, including Benito Carbone and his £40,000 per week contract, had to be paid in full.The Football League and Football Association argue that the rule maintains competition, ensuring that clubs cannot overreach themselves on players’ pay, sack them and wipe the slate clean. The Revenue is considering whether to appeal to the House of Lords, but if it does not, or loses there, the football creditors rule, which the football authorities insisted on if clubs are to emerge from administration still members of the League, will remain in force.As fistfuls of clubs have fallen into administration, the rule’s distasteful effect has been pungently apparent. Against expectations and the expert advice of most of the accountancy profession, the controversial rule that when clubs become insolvent, their “football creditors” – clubs and millionaire players – have to be paid in full, while other creditors can go unpaid, has survived a High Court challenge and appeal. Began a journalistic career writing for Time Out, the Irish magazine Magill and Dublin’s Sunday Tribune.1987 Topped the book charts with his biography of U2, Unforgettable Fire.1990 Became a hate figure after heavy criticism of Jack Charlton following Ireland’s World Cup game with Egypt. Charlton labelled him a “bitter little man”.2002 Taken off air and suspended after appearing to be drunk during RTE’s World Cup coverage. Caused a media storm after he ghosted Roy Keane’s autobiography.2004 Now a columnist with the Sunday Independent and the Irish Daily Star, he remains a football pundit on RTE..