Song for Guy

“Stay down you Ponce!”

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It would be fair to say that during his year and a half at Rockingham Road Guy Branston has had a big hand in this latter day Poppies Golden Age. After helping steer us to promotion from the BSN he formed part of the trio with Harper and Exodus which boasted the best defensive record in the BSP last season and helped us get to the Fourth Round of the FA Cup for only the second time. You would think this period of success would be very welcome for a player at this stage of his career. And yet….

One never quite shrugged off the feeling that he yearned to be playing in League Two. This may be mainly attributed to the fact that he continually told us so! Getting a lucrative 2-year contract with the Poppies sounded pretty good, (perhaps even more lucrative than we thought) but you always sensed he was looking over the river at the greener pastures of the football league.

Obviously playing against minnows like Luton, Oxford, Mansfield, York and Cambridge can’t compete with the glamour of visits to Barnet, Morecambe, Accrington and Dagenham, but we hoped he would learn to love his new surroundings. You’d have also thought that with Mark Cooper continually being linked with other jobs there might exist the very real possibility of a player manager position at Kettering in due course?

No one in his or her right mind would say that Guy didn’t give his all for Kettering. His enthusiasm was there for all to see. It would also be fair to say that his enthusiasm was also a contributory factor to the more unsavoury incidents during his tenure here. Who can forget the throat high karate kicks or biffing opposition players when they were on the ground? But where did this over-exuberance get him? Other than sitting in the stand?

He continually went for balls that other defenders were covering. Usually heading them in almost any direction other than the one he intended due to his curious 50p shaped-head. He and Harper got mixed up a few times which led to embarrassing goals. He almost finished Mark Rawle’s career when at one of his pointless forays forward at corners he landed on his ankle, despite Rawle being in a better position to go for goal. Finally of course, his passion led to him missing the game with Fulham.

Hopefully in the months and years to come when he slips into the reserves at Burton he will look back fondly on his successful time at Kettering where he was a big fish in our small pool.

Guy will certainly leave a large (headed) hole to fill, although those proclaiming his departure will herald “the end of days” are perhaps going a little overboard. At the end of the day one always had a sense that Guy’s attention and future lay elsewhere, and that although he played for Kettering, you never really felt he was a Kettering player.