PATGOD - relevant as ever!

Poppies fans, as usual, have a lot of important questions to ponder.  Will we ever play again?  And if we play again, will we manage to squeeze in all of our fixtures?  And if we squeeze in all of our fixtures, will we win enough of them to stay up?  And if we do stay up, will the ground upgrades be done in time to satisfy Nationwide League requirements?  Aagh!  Too many questions!  Too much to think about!

But none of this is giving me sleepless nights.  No, currently the Poppies question that I can't shake off is, admittedly, not a particularly pressing one.  It's this one.....

Exactly WHAT building is this to the rear of the famous old Eldred's Field Poppies photograph?  We've all seen the image a hundred times, and we know where Eldred's field was.  It now sits mostly under Tennyson Road and York Street and no more than a hefty, wind assisted goalkick from where I'm typing this.

The (in) Famous Eldred's Field photograph

But, the large building to the rear?  Is that still there, and if so, which building is it?  And why is this question keeping me up nights?

For years I have been under the impression that it was the rear end of the Ken Hall factory, which is still at the end of Newman Street.  A view seemingly confirmed in Mel Hopkins and Bob Brown's mighty tome - "When Football Came to Kettering".  The view in the photograph can still be roughly approximated if you roll up a trouser leg and stand in the entrance to the Masonic Lodge carpark and look across at Ken Halls from there.

A couple of weeks ago this certainty was rocked when local brainy-box and all-round Mr Kettering, Ian Addis, in a talk about lost sportsfields of Kettering suggest, the building in the rear of the Eldred's Field photograph was the similar building in York Road.

Woah!  Way to push my world off it's comfortable axis Ian!

This building is also still with us, and has been turned into flats (quelle surprise!)  Could this be correct?  Ian Addis has forgotten more about Kettering since I started typing this than I'll ever know, but I'm not certain about this at all.  So uncertain in fact that I've been out with my trusty box brownie to try get to the bottom of a mystery that literally no-one else is interested in.

The "top of the spire" photograph, showing Eldred's field on the right

My one-man quest for the truth isn't helped by the fact that today you can't really see the York Road building from the same angle you can see the building in the old photograph.  Some pesky builders built some solid real estate in the way over a hundred years ago - damn them!  You can see the building from the York Street side to get an approximation of, presumably how the other side of the building looked.

The first thing that strikes you is just how bloody similar the York Street flats and Ken Halls actually are!  Both are two storey's high with identical pitched roofs, square second floor windows and round-arched first floor windows.  Just like the building in the Eldred's Field photograph.  Based on the initial inspection, it really could be either building!

Green Lane's extra roof joists and
additional painted bits.

But, I believe that there are a couple of very small points that seem to point more towards Ken Hall rather than Green Lane.  Admittedly this is based on looking at the face of the building on Green Lane that faces the road, because, as already mentioned, the side of the Green Lane building that would be seen in the old photograph can't easily be accessed these days without breaking into a few back gardens....!

There seem to be more roof joists in evidence in the Green Lane building than at Ken Halls, and in the original photographs.  In fact the Ken Hall and original photograph look to have an identical configuration in the top corner?

Ken Halls factory today

Also, the first floor, rounded windows seem to have a little more painted areas linking the windows in the Green Lane building than is found on the Ken Hall building or on the original photograph.  Also, looking at the ariel shot from the Parish Church, showing the houses on Green Lane, wouldn't some of these be seen in the background of the original photograph?  And, the Parish Church ariel photograph, to me, suggests the football pitch wouldn't have quite fitted to place the Green Lane building in the spot where it features in the Eldred's Field photograph?

Ken Hall's factory?  Not today.....

But, I'm no expert, and could be entirely wrong about all of this.

Probably the only way to sort this question out for all time would be for Ian Addis to take on Mel & Bob in a no-holds-barred fist fight.  But that would probably be literally the worst nerd-fight in the history of the world.  And no one would want to see that!