Sunday 10 May 2009

Museums CAN be fun shock!









Of great interest to any self-respecting Poppies fan is the exhibition set-up by the Poppies Trust currently running at the Manor House Museum in town. There are loads of great old photographs, shirts and programmes from our history, which are all worth a look.

I popped in on Saturday and found myself ear-wigging a couple of old-timers arguing the merits of players from long ago, reminded of the long-gone footballers staring back from faded sepia prints. All in their glorious, old-boy Kettering accents.

We all like to talk about the history of our club, and rub our longevity in the faces of the Inbreds, but listening to these old buffers going at it made me appreciate the living nature of our history. These old guys were at Rockingham Road telling our players to earn their money before a lot of us were born. They were lambasting linesmen while our fathers were in short trousers. They were sipping Bovril and wearing flat caps in a time when a single copper on his bike passing the ground at 4.45PM was all the crowd control needed to dissipate 6000 shoemakers.

Given that the museum display was made up of items supplied by Kettering supporters I was set wondering what other Poppies gold was stashed away in attics all over town. Surely someone somewhere has Paul Gascoigne’s throat plaster, or Mark English’s Tax receipt, or even Peter Morris’s sense of humour.

Worth digging out to add to the collection!

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