We coulda been contenders!

Watching the Football League show is always entertaining.  You can goggle at the relative positions in the footballing pecking order of teams we used to beat.  Crawley? League One?  Really?  Goal highlights from newly built football grounds where a few thousand supporters are scattered around enormous swathes of empty seats.  You can have a chuckle at seeing the Cobblers slither to another defeat during another season of under-achievement.

But the most fun for a Poppies fan is noting all of our ex-players plying their trade in the Football League and pondering the team we could put out should they all suddenly become available to us again.

Pouring over a few weeks worth of "The Football League Show", with a pen in one hand, and Wikipedia open on the other, I've, hopefully, managed to assemble a team of former-Poppies talent, which, if they played for us now might even keep our terrace moaners quiet for all of five minutes.

I'd be the first to admit that not all of the players below are starters for their clubs week-in, week-out, but they still ply their trade in the Football League, and still, for better or worse, have KTFC on their CV.

GK - Mark Bunn (Bench warming for Norwich City)

DF - Greg Taylor (easily bossing Man Ure's poseurs for Cambridge City)
DF - Tom Flannagan (still being loaned out by MK Dons, presently with Plymouth)
DF - John Dempster (presumably still at Mansfield, until he returns one day)

MF - Mustapha Carayol (injured on loand for us, but done well since with Middlesbrough)
MF - Simon Heslop (curiously still hanging out with John Dempster at Mansfield)
MF - Andre Boucaud (At Dagenham, still trying to pass to Patrick Noubissie)
MF - Alfie Potter (Turning out for AFC Wimbledon.  Still looks 12)

CF - Craig Westcarr (Still annoying Pedro down at Portsmouth)
CF - Callum Wilson (Scary - former Poppy on the cusp of the Premier League)
CF - Charlie Wyke (Another player who lived out of suitcase, being loaned everywhere.  Now at Carlisle  - suppose someone has to be.)

Sub - Lee Folwer (Somehow back in the Football League with Crawley.  Had to be on the bench, just so it can all kick-off when he comes onto the pitch)

Manager - Mark Cooper.  Undergone a transformation from miserable safety-first, Poppies point accumulator, to miserable, all-attacking, ultra-successful Swindon boss.

I'm sure I've missed out others, but I think that's definitely a team that could do a job for us.  The thick wedge of midfield talent might even bring some cheer to our more miserable Latimer Park whingers!

Heslop and Dempster in their earlier, boy-band days