Emotional Brady 'deeply hurt' as he fights back the tears after Cobblers' relegation is confirmed

An emotional Jon Brady struggled to hold back the tears and admitted he was 'deeply hurt' by Cobblers' relegation to League Two.

Town's fate was sealed on Saturday when they were well beaten 3-0 by Blackpool, leaving them four points adrift with only next weekend's trip to Sunderland left.

"I'm deeply hurt by today now that we have been relegated because I honestly believed from the outset that we could do it and I never gave up believing," said Brady.

"It's been very personal for me because we're local and we threw everything at it. It hurts a lot at the moment and it's very raw and it'll take a bit of time to get over this.

"But in football you've got to pick yourself up, dust yourself down and look to put a marker down at Sunderland next week to say that this club will not lie down."

Luke Garbutt's 19th minute strike handed Blackpool the lead on Saturday before Jerry Yates bagged a late brace.

Brady added: "We started well and it could have been a different story because we had two penalty shouts in the first five minutes - Peter Kioso was grappled to the floor and Ryan Watson was tripped over but the referee hasn't seen either of them.

"AJ's then not strong enough, they go on the counter-attack and the boy shouldn't be able to score from that angle. The second one is a fumble and then there's the third one late on.

"They've invested well and they're a class outfit but I felt we were really in the game up until half-time."