Is this the worst Poppies team in living memory?

I suppose it depends on what constitutes "living memory" but there has to be a case for holding up the class of 23/24 as possibly the worst Poppies squad certainly that Patgod has seen.  Sure, we've often assembled teams with shoddy players in it, but it is difficult to look back and identify a whole squad that has so woefully underperformed over so long.

Some of the early to mid 1980's teams were pretty ropey, but they were teams that still managed to avoid relegation from what was the top tier of non-league football.  The team that was finally relegated from the top division in the early 2000's wasn't great, but it won promotion the following year.  Mind you, the team that was relegated again the following season, rock bottom of the Conference was pretty piss poor.  But again, it was a team being relegated from what would now be the National League, so that in itself must garner a kernel of respect, surely?

In the battle to be crowned "Worst Poppies Team Ever" it really comes down to a straight fight between our current team and the last one to be relegated from this division in 2012-13 season where even if we hadn't been deducted 10 points we'd have still finished rock bottom by a further 10 points.

A closer analysis of that season and this one throws up quite a few disquieting similarities.  

Both seasons followed relegation from the National League structure into the Southern League Premier.  Both seasons took place against a backdrop of an owner actively seeking to sell the club.  Both seasons saw a revolving door of players and managers where you rarely bothered to learn new players names as they had a shelf life of less than a month.  And that was if they were any good.

But are we being entirely fair to the class of 2012-13?  During that season we barely escaped from Non Park to Steal Park.  We stopped playing for a month.  We were back in Court facing winding-up orders.  We were literally piecing teams together on a weekly basis.  We had an owner who didn't give a f*ck and a prospective owner about to be handed a 5-year ban from football.  Clearly 2012-13 was a clusterf*ck of clusterf*ckedness.  

We were rightly relegated and were frankly an embarrassment to Kettering Town FC, the town of Kettering, the County of Northamptonshire and the Southern League.  And yet.....

This season we may well have shuffled off an owner and a shed load of managers and players, but we are a far more settled club.  We know, barring the merest hint of rain or the lightest of frost, where we're playing.  We're getting several hundred punters through the doors.  We have a thriving off-field scene.  Our only problem is getting 11 sufficiently qualified and motivated players onto the pitch wearing red and black.  But, here we are, getting regularly thumped by tiny clubs from tiny towns and are reliant on other clubs going bust or being patently not good enough to be in this division to give us even a CHANCE of staying up.  

2012-13 was always going to be a crap season.  2023-24 we started off pondering, if not promotion, at least a good showing and a possible tilt at the play-offs.

We have a couple of games coming up against Sudbury that will go a long way towards deciding our fate this season.  But even if we somehow pull ourselves out of current nose-dive I think we would be hard pushed to award worst Poppies team in living memory to anyone but the current crop.

Now, Lavery, print this article off and pin it to the dressing room wall.  Show it to the players before they take to the pitch.

We've tried everything else....

Beginning of the end?