Diamonds head into the last two weeks of a busy pre-season campaign with a trip to Southern League Central side Daventry Town on Saturday afternoon.
Daventry Town are another county side to have been established in the 1880’s playing mainly in county leagues until they joined the United Counties League in 1989. A devastating fire at the Elderstubbs clubhouse nearly put them out of business in 2006 but the community effort which enabled the club to survive energised the club and they achieved promotion to the Southern League in 2010. Despite some decent successes including a 1st round FA Cup tie against Chesterfield (in which Liam Dolman played) Daventry had to resign from the Northern League in 2016 due to financial issues and were placed back in the United Counties League. The appointment of former Diamonds Aaron Parkinson and Matt Finlay as the management team saw the Purple Army complete the climb back through the UCL to the Southern League.
There have been many links between the two sides over the years with Liam Dolman and Tom Lorraine at Daventry during that great FA Cup run. Ben Heath played over 70 games for The Purple Army, Jack Ashton appeared on loan on two occasions and Ben Farrell has also appeared.
The management team at Daventry include two Diamonds heroes of course with Manager Aaron Parkinson having played 51 times and scored a mighty 2 goals. His first was in the epic FA Vase tie against AFC Wulfrunians in which he scored at both ends!! His attempted clearance beat Diamonds full-back Jake Gillingwater, who had to play the whole game in goal due to travel delays, and put Wulfrunians ahead against Diamonds 10 men. But after Russ Dunkley’s dramatic late equaliser Parkinson powered home a corner in extra time to clinch a dramatic 4-2 win. His second was in a 4-1 win against Wellingborough Town.
Matt Finlay is Aaron’s Assistant and never quite managed a goal in his 161 appearances in goal but he was a popular player and a massive part of the club’s climb out of UCL and establishment at Southern/Northern League level.
Diamonds got back to winning ways on Tuesday night with a youthful side running out 5-1 winners with “veteran” Tom Lorraine scoring again. Diamonds then added the signing of Prince Mutswunguma who had been impressing as a trialist to an increasingly promising looking squad. Team selection in these final three games will be fascinating as manager Andy Peaks builds towards that opening day game at Nuneaton.
The game today is all-ticket again and details from Daventry on arrangements for the game are on the website now.
Radio Diamonds will be live too if you can’t make the game so tune in for the action in what should be another competitive game.
Match Preview: Paul Judd, Radio Diamonds
