COBBLERS QUIZ: Just for fun... looking back to the madness of 2002/03

Sport is on lockdown for the foreseeable future and the Cobblers, like every other sports team in the country, are currently sat on the sidelines.

So for those of you looking for a little bit of a football fix, we at the Chron are putting together a regular little quiz, focusing on a Town campaign of the past - and it's just a bit of fun.

Today, we are heading to the season from summer, 2002 to May, 2003.

Now, the Cobblers fans are no strangers to their club being involved in fairly chaotic seasons, but the 2002/03 campaign was surely up there, or should that be down there, with severe Keystone Coppery.

It all started serenely enough, with Town unbeaten in their first three games as Kevan Broadhurst began what he was hoping would be his first full season in charge.

The season was pretty much going as well as it could have done up until the end of November, with the Cobblers comfortable in mid-table and Broadhurst doing a great job with limited resources, but there were financial issues causing problems behind the scenes.

The Cobblers board had been trying to sell the club for more than 12 months, and in December, 2002, they finally found some buyers - enter David and Tony Cardoza and pals, with the consortium front man being Andrew Ellis.

The Cardozas' purchase of Town, signed off in a late night deal at the end of a club dinner at the Hilton Hotel in Collingtree, rather than galvanise the club, seemed to unsettle the playing squad, who hit a real sticky patch through December, before starting 2003 with a great 2-1 New Year's Day win at Barnsley.

Ellis stood in the away end with the Cobblers supporters, and after the game publicly backed the job manager Broadhurst was doing.

Sadly, that win was followed by a 5-0 home thrashing at the hands of Wycombe Wanderers a few days later, and Broadhurst was promptly sacked, with the Cobblers 15th in the Nationwide League Division Two table, well clear of the drop zone.

Former England defender Terry Fenwick was the almost immediate curveball of a replacement, but his shambolic reign lasted just seven weeks that would have been so funny, were it not so damaging for the club.

He did outlast his chairman Ellis though, who had been sent packing a couple of weeks earlier.

Ken Good was the man to take over as acting chairman (are you keeping up?), and he in turn appointed former chief scout Martin Wilkinson as Town's caretaker boss following Fenwick's sacking.

The move did not help results, as a confused squad stripped of any sort of confidence struggled badly, eventually finishing rock bottom of the division two table, 11 points adrift of safety.

After three years as a division two club, and six months of off-field madness, Town were heading back to the fourth tier of English football... again.