Match Preview: AFC Rushden & Diamonds vs Alvechurch FC – Saturday 16th October – 3 pm KO

Diamonds will be looking to build on Tuesday night’s impressive performance against a very good Rushall Olympic as they take on Alvechurch at Hayden Road on Saturday afternoon.

Diamonds drew against Rushall 1-1 but finished strongly and came close to winning with a number of late chances. Alvechurch beat in-form Leiston last Saturday so this has the makings of another excellent Southern Premier Central match.

Alvechurch FC

The Church were founded in 1929 as Alvechurch Juniors working their way to Southern League level in the 1970’s. That iteration of the club holds a unique FA Cup record that will never be beaten. They fought through 5 replays of an FA Cup 4th Round Qualifying tie in 1972 against Oxford City, finally winning 1-0 at Villa Park. They also reached the 3rd Round Proper in 1973/1974 beating Exeter and King’s Lynn Town before a 4-2 defeat by Bradford City.

The club folded in 1993 but re-emerged in 1994 starting in the Midland Combination league before fighting back up to Northern Premier League Division One South. Promotion was achieved in the first season and saw them placed in the Southern League Premier Central. They reached the 2018/2019 playoffs beating Stourbridge before losing to King’s Lynn Town.

Previous Games

The two sides have competed 3 times in league action with Diamonds unbeaten. The first contest was a 0-0 away draw, notable for Duane Darby’s guest appearance on Radio Diamonds. A 1-1 draw at Hayden Road followed with Sam Johnson, the Diamonds scorer. The only “result” came in 2019 as Diamonds won 2-1 at Lye Meadow with Nabil Shariff and Tom Lorraine on target before Covid intervened in the season.

Recent Form

Alvechurch have a big disparity in home and away form. They come into the game off the back of three home games which saw 2 wins and a draw with a 2-0 win against in-form Leiston last Saturday making it 4 home wins in total. Away from home they gained just the one point from a 0-0 at Royston with 3 defeats in 4 at St. Ives, Lowestoft and Coalville.

Diamonds’ form can be described as just one defeat in 6 (after losing 3 of the first 4) or no wins in 3. Back-to-back 1-1 draws away at Stourbridge and home to Rushall showed a much improved form from the home defeat to Royston. That defeat had followed 7 points from 3 games so predicting Diamonds’ games remains as ever difficult. One “interesting” stat sees that Diamonds have not failed to score since 30th August so with improved defensive efforts there are positive signs for the coming games.

Match Coverage

I made my “long awaited” return to live action on Tuesday night and was able to give Joseph some company on Radio Diamonds while giving you Twitter updates. We have the brilliant Bruce Greenburg and Ollie Mortimer back in the team this weekend so listen out for Radio Diamonds, Twitter updates, interviews, highlights and now Joseph as your Stadium Announcer.

We can’t wait and hope you enjoy the game and our coverage.

Paul Judd

Radio Diamonds