But, what if we HADN'T invented Shirt Sponsorship?

By now you can't have failed to see the new slick promo video the club has released highlighting the 50th anniversary of the Doog-era "Kettering Tyres" shirt - available from reputable outlets the length and breadth of Latimer Park.  In the comforting glow of watching the smooth camera moves, soft-focus loveliness and Dave Singh looking for all the world like a sub-continent George Clooney, few question whether the origin of yet another footballing money-making enterprise is really something to celebrate.  

I've never heard an opposition fan brag about the fact their club was the first to charge an entrance fee.  Nor have I read of a club giving equal veneration to hosting the first pitch-side advertising hoarding, but someone, somewhere came up with it.   In our case I suppose we hark back to it as it is one of our few claims to footballing fame.  We all love the Poppies, but let's be honest, other than our lengthy, often painful and hard fought continued existence, shirt sponsorship and wishing hard for an early Spurs exit from the FA Cup is pretty much what defines us.

The Doog really was ahead of his time with shirt sponsorship, but in the following half century there must have been hundreds if not thousands of fabulously designed football shirts ruined by jarringly inappropriately coloured ejaculate across the chest.  And I've never quite understood why the shirt sponsor is so slavishly copied onto the supporter replica version.  It's not as if a company logo stretched over the taut paunches of us gurgling half and quarter-wits will enhance the reputation of the sponsor.  At least this season's main kit sponsors at the Poppies are all local firms, so they had at least an idea of the girth and relative glamour of the walking adverts for their companies.  

But why are fans never given the option of opting out of being a shambling billboard?  Any other time you might find yourself carrying around an advert for a company you would rightly be expecting some sort of renumeration?  But not with shirt sponsorship.  We pay through the nose to unwittingly sign-up to whoever the Club gets into bed with for the next year.  It doesn't matter if they have questionable business practices, are run by toxic owners or are content to encourage dangerous levels of gambling (When the fun stops.....yeah, that'll work) we are stuck with them for good or ill.  

And while I'm on a roll, who or what the hell were "Coinweb?"  For 12 months we all blithely walked around with their logo front and centre without a clue who we were tacitly supporting.  They could have been a worthy charity busy alleviating famine, immunising against disease or tackling childhood mortality.  Equally they could have been a gun-running, Southern American Narco outfit, or worse, a firm allied to Nigel Farage.  Who knows?  Not us, that's for sure.

Dave Singh relaxes between takes
getting in the mood for his next cruise

"...Oh, oh I'm Trapped, like a football fan I'm in a cage...."

.....I can't get out, you see I'm trapped, can't you see I'm so confused, I can't get oooooooout....!"

So sang 80's funkster and possible Smurf-wrangler, Colonel Abrams on his dance-floor filler, "Trapped".  And if you've followed the Poppies away much this season you'll appreciate and share the sentiment in the good Colonel's words.

Another tough day at the office yesterday on the road for the Poppies.  Another backs to the wall effort.  Another grisly afternoon's weather.  And yet another segregated game for the travelling reds.  Depressingly, we all know why this is increasingly happening.  Even more depressingly, those among us who are the cause are unlikely to ever read this.  Or read.

Every time a bunch of our Burberry-wearing part-time teenage contingent angrily rattle a fence somewhere, looking for a fight they know they are never going to have, it is noticed.  Each gumped-up piss-head celebrating a last minute winner on the pitch rather than on the terraces is recorded.  These incidents are ruminated over by officials at other clubs or the local plod.  Or both.  The result - segregation for the rest of us.

Invading the pitch is only acceptable (A) when you win the league, or (B) when Ronnie Radford scores from 40 yards in the Cup back in the early 1970's.  We've missed the latter by half a century, and the former seems a painfully distant prospect, so keep off the f*cking pitch you dolts!

But there's the rub - do these fences cause more problems than they prevent?  Are we "rewarding" the tiny percentage of dicks who view a confrontational atmosphere as some kind of validation?

This is non-league.  We've all spent more years than we care to recall mixing with opposition fans, drinking in each others social clubs, and managing to co-exist without fighting each other.  A lot of it comes down to self-policing.  One of yours gets out of hand and someone has a word.  Bad behaviour is coached out of miscreants by those around them.  Tougher these days when some less than savoury 70's attitudes are reappearing and in some disreputable quarters, being positively encouraged.

When you are among fans of another team you soon realise that they are just people like us.  They are just suffering the terrible misfortune of being born elsewhere and wearing a different coloured scarf.  They are not an existential threat to our way of Poppies-supporting life.  They can't help being from a less-blessed place and as a consequence, forced to support a far more moderate football club.  If you want to feel anything for them, perhaps pity is more appropriate than anger?

When you separate the two groups of fans into separate, caged-of areas the atmosphere becomes immediately confrontational.  It's US versus THEM.  Abuse can be pointed in a specific direction at a specific group of people.  You are stood in an unregulated echo-chamber of a single point of view.  The experience becomes the very opposite of what non-league football has always been and should continue to be. 

Colonel Abrahams, rather on-the-nose with the 
imagery for his song "Trapped".
No signs of the Smurfs though.

No, No, No! Really?

"Attention Season Ticket Holders: Christmas Clash at Harborough Town.

The festive football calendar brings with it one of the most anticipated fixtures of the season: Harborough Town away on Saturday 27 December 2025, 3pm kick-off. And, judging by the early clamour for tickets, it seems Poppies supporters are treating this one somewhere between a cup final and a pilgrimage."

You can't have failed to spot the Harborough ticketing post on the the KTFC Website.  Above is the opening paragraph which has rightly been widely mocked on Social Media.  Not to risk the FOMO we thought we'd pull our size 11's on and join in.....

Christ, where do you start? Now, we don't necessarily believe that EVERY official club statement should be filtered through the prism of PATGOD, but, bloody hell, this one should have been. At least it could then have been read without leaving the taste of a bit of sick in the back of your throat. Unlike the club's attempt, we have taken the liberty of re-writing the above in a way designed NOT to coax stiffies in any readers from over the Leicestershire border.

Attention Season Ticket Holders - you know, you suckers who stumped up for the WHOLE season before we came up with a cracking part-season ticket offer. And, you know, those we screwed out of having a concession price at 60...yes, you lot.

It's bloody Christmas again, when games come far too thick and fast and the missus wants to drag you down to sodding Rushden Lakes so you can spend half a day trying to park the car and the rest of the day being bored out of your mind as 'er indoors looks at EVERYTHING on sale in EVERY store. And then buys all the gifts from the first shop you visited.

Sandwiched within this ruinous run of home games is a trip just up the road to the plastic school-pitch and rudimentary facilities of the painfully over-promoted and over-financed Harborough Town with their squad of expensively assembled mercenaries lorded over by the grinning beard of Mitch Look-at-my-enormous-budget Austin.

Barely one or two people have asked about tickets for this upcoming slaughter. Everyone else is busy cowering and hoping they will go bust before they can slap us all around their joke of a stadium which will look hideously out of place in National North if they manage to piss higher up the spend-what-you-can wall than Spalding before the end of the season.

Now, we know that playing Kettering Town is still more important to these pissant, bumpkin clubs than the air that they breathe, and playing us gives them their only chance of ever nudging a 4-figure gate, so the game will be all ticket. It's not a Cup Final. We've actually played them before. For real. At places like Wembley. It's also not a quasi-religious event. Some of us watched Poppies teams with Billy Kellock, Frankie Murphy, Phil Brown and Carl Alford in their pomp, so we know the difference. Lining-up to watch a half team of former money-grabbers who bottled their big chance last season when playing for us isn't much to write home about.

But we'll buy the tickets. We'll try to park somewhere near their tinny stadium. We'll piss in their portaloos. We'll try to watch the match through the gaps in our fingers. We'll continue to wonder if the Sun revolves around Dolman or vice versa. And we'll still be attending our fixtures in 5, 10, 20 years if spared, long after the private moolah swelling the Harborough Town coffers has been spent chasing the opportunity to take 3 fans on an away trip to Spennymoor and they are back playing park football, assuming they exist at all.

This is how the announcement could have been headed. KTFC - if you want to use this, it's not too late. Please feel free to cut and paste. We only want to help. We've spent decades coming up with pithy ripostes to more would-be rivals than Jason Alexander has made saves this season. And for the love of God, before you write such a fawning piece of sickly guff again, stop for a moment and ask yourselves one simple question, "How would PATGOD phrase this?" Then go for it!

Bloody hell guys, let's not give
Austin a bigger head than he's already got!

Here comes the Perfect Poppies Storm....

Oh happy days.  We know the soft-underbelly of Poppies fanbase need little encouragement to stop attending games and resort to sniping from the side-lines, while checking out Harborough's upcoming fixtures.

But can anyone recall in recent years such a perfect storm about to engulf us?

• Three straight, abject defeats on the road in a week - check
• Tumbling down the table - check
• Several Poppies games coming up (far too many) - check
• Club owners suddenly go quiet - check
• Expensive Christmas period coming up - check
• Team being chopped and changed - check 
• Sicknote Will Glennon ill again (seems to annoy some of our fans) - check
• Open the curtains this morning and it's pissing down - check
• Still a sub-standard home kit (sorry, that's one of mine....) - check

Assuming Latimer Park's much improved drainage does it's job today we look forward to seeing the other 500 of you later today....

It could be worse....er....er.....

That Sinking Feeling

On being handed a list of the players at his disposal, an England cricket captain once said “My God, look what they’ve sent me!”  Liam McDonald might have felt something similar the other night. Coming to terms with just what a task he has on his hands can’t be easy. A few weeks ago, just after his appointment, the message was: these are all good players - they’re just low on confidence. The updated version is missing the first bit.

So just how did we get ourselves into this mess and how do we get out of it? Let’s begin by acknowledging that the slide began well before this season. Almost exactly a year ago the Lavery team reached its peak before an alarming drop off set in. From Christmas onwards we only fleetingly looked like a team capable of promotion, and ultimately got what we deserved. You can take your pick from the theories why – directorial interference, heavy handed management, key players losing form – but the facts don’t lie: just 9 wins out of 21, mid-table form really. 

All of which set us up perfectly for a triumphant march to the title this time, but for a few niggling things, hardly worth mentioning but let’s air them anyway. Lavs stalked off and some good players followed in sympathy / pursuit of more money. Three other clubs in this division now have financial resources we can only dream of. George picked a complete clown as manager. And we went into the season with our most unbalanced, over hyped, papier mache squad since the golden days of Morell at Nene Park.

When Hollyhead was appointed, about the one positive thing from his CV that fans could agree on was that he seemed to know how to keep it tight at the back. An impression he was quick to dispel, by shipping three before the season was 45 minutes old and merrily fielding a back line of players not in their natural position. Meanwhile our only specialist CB, with a proven track record, found himself a bench warmer at best. Navigation may not be Lewis White’s strength, but he soon found his way to a club that was happy to make room for him. Wouldn't you? 

Weak at the back, lightweight in midfield and top heavy with strikers who all wanted to play but not necessarily with each other – what could go wrong? Not much!  Since Harborough first exposed our powder puff credentials our form has been relegation material – three wins, three draws, eight defeats - and getting worse by the week. We’re in trouble and we know it.

At least Liam, still in his grace period, can truthfully point out that the squad just isn’t good enough. Responsibility for that has to sit with the brains behind recruitment. Probably not Hollyhead, he had other failings. The path to recovery has to begin with an acknowledgement, not necessarily public but it will soon show, that Fabian is simply not a good judge of a player and is stepping back from transfer business. 

What that leaves him to do, who knows, but keep him away from the knife drawer please. Hand in hand with that, give Liam full control. He was brought in because of his pedigree at this level, is still spoken highly of by fans of his previous clubs, the guy clearly has passion and tells it as it is – back him to the hilt and that includes all of us. 

What’s in store in the next few weeks and months is probably not going to be pretty, as Liam tries to reshape his options and we're forced to muddle through. Overconfidence and naivety has cost us at least one season of progress. The goal now is to just keep it to that, and by the spring have the makings of a more settled team that can be properly competitive next time. 

Oh and take that bloody scoreboard down!

Having "KTFC" on your CV still opens doors. Unfortunately.

As time moves on and memories fade I do occasionally wonder if the younger fans coming through at the Poppies have any genuine grasp of what an existential threat to our club Rushden and Diamonds were.  I also find myself pondering the shared race memory that allows lads in their teens and twenties to sing about hating Stevenage Borough, Woking, and the aforementioned Scum, given they have more than likely never encountered these teams.  They just KNOW they need to be denigrated.  And that's OK by me.

The true fear, hatred and black despair caused by R&D FC cannot be quantified by those who weren't there to experience it at the time.  Whenever I was asked about them by supporters of other clubs I would describe the situation akin to having Manchester United set up shop 5-miles down the road, build Old Trafford out of the bones of your ancestors and then steal as many of our players and, let's be honest, our fans as possible.  

One thing is for certain.  AFC Rushden & Diamonds could NEVER replace their predecessors in the pantheon of footballing horrors we have survived.  No, Diamonds-lite are nothing but another, anonymous little club of nobodies that reduced footballing circumstances occasionally puts in our path.  Nothing more or less.  This is despite the continued and desperate efforts of their supporters to manufacture some sort of bitter rivalry and hatred.  A hatred certainly not shared by the people who actually run their club if their current hiring practices are to be believed.

Minds immeasurably superior to our own (and far more statto-centric) have noted that SO FAR this season AFC Scum's Management (a pair of ex-Poppies) have employed a full dozen of our former players.  Sure, some of them barely registered in their time here - Kieran Dawes anyone?  Anyone?

Other players were ones that could have been Poppies contenders - such as Will Mellors-Blair or Lamine Sherif.  Good players but never quite made it.

Still others leave you wondering at the fact they are still putting their aging bodies through the strain of semi-professional football - here Gary Mulligan, have a seat...

And then there's Bruno Andrade.  Bruno fucking Andrade.  He failed to impress during two protracted stints stealing a living from the Poppies - drifting in and out of games and mysteriously being picked ahead of far better players.  And then, we got to see him have ONE storming, match-winning performance.  Unfortunately it was for Bedford Town AGAINST us when he single-handedly cost us the League title.  Of course, football being the ultimate rollercoaster, Bruno now finds himself on the downside, chasing punts down the park on a bobbly patch in Rushden in front of a few hundred grizzling bumpkins happily recalling the Griggs-purchased success at Nonce Park and desperate to count us a footballing rival.  

Good - they deserve each other.....!

Remember us?  
Please......

Poppies at the Gates of Yet Another Dawn

Well folks, another new dawn at the Poppies breaks today with the Liam McDonald era kicking off against perennial pissy, party-poopers St Ives.  Liam must be hoping for 3rd-time-lucky-manager-of-2025 and get a good start with plenty of the season left after bottler Hollyhead-ed for the exit.

In many ways this season has gone exactly like last season, with one small difference.  Last season our rise, dominance, cup run, team fragmenting and eventual failure followed by managerial change took all 10-months of the season.  This season, the club, showing remarkable efficiency has packed all of the above into the first two months of 2025-26.  

• Good start - five straight wins - check!  
• Both tilts at Wembley done and dusted early doors with great aplomb!
• Team falling to pieces in front of us - not everyone can shed all their strikers in a fortnight!
• Form hits rock bottom and any sack of shite can give us a pummelling.
• Manager sacked / resigns / mutual consent - take your pick.

Yes, the whole of the 2024-25 season neatly wrapped up before November.  Now what?  The same again?  Another new set of players for us to barely have a chance of committing to memory?  A challenge for the league, or mid-table consolidation?

Who knows, but it should be exciting.  Except, this is Kettering and we'll probably fumble that too.....

Not exactly a "poison chalice", but
can you have a "poison shirt....?"

WhatsAppening

George: Welcome to the Poppies manager shortlist group

Liam: Shortlist? I thought I was nailed on

George: You were but we have been impressed by the quality, diversity and experience of applicants

Liam: Meaning?

Lavs: Hi guys

Liam: You’ve changed your tune!

George: Let’s keep it friendly

Lavs: So, is it just us then?

Cox: Thanks for adding me, George! Great to be back

George: Nothing is decided yet Paul. I thought it might save time to answer a few questions together

Lavs: Like why is Kai out on loan?

George: Ha ha, not my decision

Fabian: Sorry I’m late guys

George: No worries. Now each of you, why do you want this job?

Liam: Well as I said before, I know this league, I know how to get out of it, I have good contacts and a full, clean driving licence

Cox: I have unfinished business at this football club. It’s a massive football club. It’s a football club that belongs at a higher level and I want to deliver that for the football club

Lavs: What he said, plus it’s boring not going ballistic on a Saturday afternoon

George: Next question – what have you been doing since you were last in management?

Liam: Watching players, maintaining contacts, preparing for a new challenge

Cox: Getting my advanced diploma in boilerplate management speak and applying for this job on the 14 occasions it has come up since

Lavs: Gloating, mostly

George: Ok, now how do you feel about working with a director of football?

Liam: I’m prepared to give it a try

Cox: I’ll do what is best for the football club to achieve success for the football club because it’s a massive football club

Lavs: Can we take this off-line?

Fabian: LOL, still got your sense of humour Lavs!

George: Last question – what commitment can you give to managing this club?

Liam: If appointed I will give 110% each and every day to make Kettering a force in non-League football again

Lavs: I will work in perfect harmony with Fabian to draw upon his unrivalled eye for talent 

Cox: I will pledge my unwavering loyalty to Kettering and not be tempted as soon as a job comes up at a club with a slightly nicer ground 

Lavs: Yeah right

Cox: You started it!

George has left the group

Wanted: A Boring Period of Stability

The end, when it came, was quick. And even – we’re led to believe – voluntary. If Hollyhead did indeed resign then he deserves credit for acknowledging his situation. If it wasn’t his decision, it was still the right one. 

An odd appointment that left fans distinctly underwhelmed from the outset, he tried to generate goodwill by airing his credentials as a people manager and overpraising the same supporters who were eyeing him suspiciously from day one. Some early optimism was generated, true – right until we met a well drilled Harborough side who probably don’t hear a lot of pseudo scientific coaching jargon from Mitch Austin. Pretty soon wheels were starting to wobble and it wasn’t even September.

Warning signs included the will-he-won’t-he Nile Ranger saga, Lobjoit’s sudden absence, a substitution tantrum or two, the limp FA Cup exit and being shredded by Spalding. By the time we had exited the Trophy also without a whimper and Ranger was in open revolt only to keep his starting place at Alvechurch having apparently already left the club, it was hard to shake the feeling that Mr Hollyhead (“call me Simon”) was the nice supply teacher who had lost control of the class. 

So yes he was the wrong choice for the job, ill equipped to handle some disruptive characters and in diffident touchline body language an interesting contrast with Lavs going berserk and Leese waving his arms in disgust. It was hard to imagine Hollyhead rousing the troops with a punchy half-time talk. It was easy to imagine them leaving the dressing room muttering “anyone understand any of that?”.

But the problem is wider than one person and pre-dates him. It was a factor, possibly THE factor, in the departure of his predecessor, and will continue to be a handicap unless addressed. We refer of course to the fact we have a director of football.

The fundamental question is why have a DoF at all? The vast majority of clubs in this country below elite level do not have one. It’s not just a question of budget, more that they are not complex enough organisations to require one. Countless team managers across the pyramid find that they are able to handle scouting, strategy, recruitment AND send the right team out on Saturday. They wouldn’t have it any other way. However they’re all wrong and we’re right. Only a DoF can provide the necessary clarity of vision to achieve strategic alignment and… yeah yeah yeah. And presumably pick up pearls like Brandon Barker, who drifted through 5 appearances without ever needing his kit to be washed. 

Which is the next question. If we must have a DoF, can he be a little bit better at recruitment? No one can possibly be expected to always get it right, but there’s a strong pattern of players coming in who are inferior replacements, often with an alarmingly long CV for their age – which surely is a warning. And then when we do pick up an apparent gem, turns out he’s already convicted of a crime likely to lead to jail. Superb vetting there. Still, at least Fabian had the contacts to sign his own son.

As long as nothing changes in terms of the club’s management structure and calibre of decision making we are likely doomed to keep repeating the same mistakes. There is a lot at stake here. Off the field a huge amount of good work has been done in the last year or so to recreate enthusiasm, but so much hinges on getting punters through the gate – and the mood music is not looking good. 

A positive of Hollyhead going so soon is there is still a lot of time to turn this season around. But what kind of candidate are we looking for now? Another continental-style coach (whatever that means in the seventh tier), condemned to try to make the best of the motley collection assembled for him? Or a credible alternative who will be given authority to have the final say on recruitment – and have that kept free of interference. 

If the latter, to labour the point, why have a DoF at all? 

Kettering, Kettering......

....why do you make it so hard for us?  We want to support and adore you, but you make it so difficult sometimes.  Why?  Why drive us into a whirlwind of doubt and fear when you could make it so much easier for everyone?

Obviously by losing a wedge of games you are going to annoy a small section of the fanbase who simply cannot grasp HOW it can come to pass that we don't finish every game victorious, with our opponents crumpled at our feet.  The same people who bemoan that they have just seen, "the worst Poppies performance EVER" whenever those playing us dare even to compete.  These people are never going to be happy campers within the wider Poppies fraternity.  It's victory ever week or they will throw a wobbler.  You can't keep these people happy and you shouldn't try to.

Others lose the faith whenever rumours begin to swirl about unhappy or unpaid players and immediately jump to conclusions whenever a disgruntled player posts literally anything vaguely critical and poorly punctuated on social media.  Their instinct is to blindly believe anything said by a player or even a friend of a friend of someone who once spoke to a player's cousin.  A player leaving us can only be irrefutable evidence of the imminent winding-up of the club and that we should all organise a boycott straight away.  Unfortunately, conspiracy theorists can rarely be argued with on any sane level, so it's also difficult to keep these guys happy either.

But the vast majority of us are far more balanced and even-handed when it comes to our support for and understanding of the club.  We don't worship at the feet of the owners when we turn over the Cobblers in the FA Cup, but also don't burn them in effigy when we ship a 95th minute equaliser.  We are the quiet majority.  We may not praise the club to high heaven and tattoo the names of players onto our torsos in the good times, but we also don't shy away from midweek fixtures in February either.  The problem is, when THESE supporters are pondering what is going on at the club it's pretty clear there are questions for the Board of Directors and Management Committee to answer.

This week's second departure of Nile Ranger seems to be the latest tipping-point for the majority of the fan base.  Not simply the fact he's (probably) gone.  Players come and go.  That's football.  Doubly so in the NN15 postcode area.  It's not even that some of our support have a wildly-inflated view of Nile's talents well beyond what the rest of us can see.  

It's accepted knowledge he was on a ridiculously good screw at the Poppies.  Not that Nile was the only overly expensive trinket we seem to have acquired - we now have a shiny, seemingly enormously-expensive scoreboard.  The club has also splashed out on refurbishing a local community centre for reasons not entirely apparent to most of us, seeing that we already have an under-utilised, recently refurbished clubhouse at Latimer Park.  It's not clear if the costs of these projects are hung round the necks of the owners or the club itself, but both seem indulgent when, at the same time, we'll soon be stumbling down to the carpark in almost complete darkness after a post-match stop-off to our rudimentary toilet facilities.  Upgrades that may not be as flashy as scoreboards or community centres, but improvements far more necessary to the average supporter.

Stir into the steaming pot of discontentment the ever-swirling rumours of shoddy accounting, unpaid bills, court cases, volunteers stepping away and the constant appeals for free labour and you soon have a bubbling stew of suspicion.  

Even the least-demanding, incurious Poppies fan (assuming such a beast exists) is left wondering what is going on at Latimer Park. Without a Cup run or romping to the top of the table to distract the supporters there are a lot of questions we are looking to have answered.  With,"Is Hollyhead the right man for the job" being the very least of them.

Simon Hollyhead - another Poppies
Manager visibly ageing in front of us....

Double-Barrel Blasts from the Past

We at Patgod Towers were jolted by a couple of unexpected reminders of Rockingham Road days in the past week.  It is difficult for supporters of our mighty age to fully grasp just how long we have been absent from our spiritual home.  Our last competitive game at our old stadium took place on the 30th April 2011 when 1400 of us watched the final game of the 2010-11 season blithely unaware it would be for the last time.  Two late Poppies goals relegated our opponents of the day, Southport, from the National League.  At least temporarily.  Within days Southport were reprieved as a tsunami of crap overwhelmed Rushden & Direones and then very nearly dragged us down too.  But this is a story oft discussed and doesn't need to be aired again.  At least not today.

A player called Jon Challinor scored our third goal that day back in Spring 2011, and by extension the last goal scored at Rockingham Road.  He had been a bit-part player for the second half of the season and this was his only goal for Kettering.  We wasn't retained for the following season, when we were too busy eyeing up the vistas of Nonce Park and plundering Real Madrid for players to bother with the likes of Challinor, a player who was the very definition of "journeyman".  Early 30's and more clubs than whichever golfer is named these days to suggest "a lot of clubs".  Sorry, but I still say Jack Nicholas, and even I know that immediately dates me!

But, something almost magical happened with Jon.  Rather than rack up another couple of dozen clubs before hanging up his boots he found HIS club.  Since 2013 he has piled-up a magnificent 400+ appearances for a single club.  This would be an entirely lovely, heartwarming story were it not for the fact that the club in question is the fetidly inbred collection of nerks and half-wits at Stamford.  But, if we can overlook this enormous issue for a moment, it is quite the achievement he is still pulling on boots at this level in his mid 40's.  And while he continues to do so there's still someone out there playing who played for us in that last match at Rockingham Road, and, despite him bench-warming for Drury's bunch of fuckwit, bumpkin arsewipes, I find this a comforting thought.  There are frighteningly few of them left.  Brett and Danny Mills are another couple who played in that last game that are still tottering around.

An ancient, knackered Jon Challinor
is assisted from the field of play
by the scary killer from Nic Roeg's
masterful movie "Don't Look Now."

Another complete shock of a former Rockingham Road luminary cropped up the other day when I was startled to find that Nathan Koo Boothe was back at the Poppies!  Don't worry - not as a player!!!

Seemingly Nathan is our "Individual Performance Coach", whatever this might entail and rejoined the club at the start of this season in a move which I'd completely missed.  Nathan's playing career couldn't have been more different to Jon's.  If Wikipedia is to be believed he racked up less than 70 career appearances, against Jon's coming up to 900.  Well over half of Nathan's scant appearances were for the Poppies both at Rockingham Road and Nonce Park.  

I don't think it unfair to say Nathan would make no-one's list of All-time Poppies Greats.  Or make the Team of the Year in any of the seasons he was with us.  Or, frankly, make any reasonable Poppies XI at any time.  But, in the continued atmosphere of bonhomie this article seems to have been written in, let's draw a line under Nathan's inability to run, head or kick a ball and remember him as someone who played for us at venerable Rocky Road.  And not simply recall him when I ironically bought his signed away shirt for a fiver during one of the many last-gasp fire-sales at Nonce Park when the club attempted to flog anything that wasn't nailed down. 

Good luck Nathan as our "Individual Performance Coach" which, curiously, is nowhere near the strangest job-title amongst our backroom staff!

It's great to have Nathan back.
In a strictly non-playing capacity.

Weak Frit? An Apology

On a previous post we suggested that a lot of Poppies fans hit the panic button and flew off the handle at every set-back the club endured.  We inferred that far too many of us hadn't the maturity to handle any sort of reversal of fortune when it came to KTFC and jumped straight off the deep end whenever literally ANYTHING bad happened to us.

We realise now that we were entirely wrong in this assessment.  Poppies fans are far more level-headed, calm, and clear-eyed than we could ever have imagined.  Patgod therefore offers a full and heartfelt apology for suggesting otherwise and will not repeat such unfounded opinions.

Also, in totally unrelated news, on KTFC social media after a full 96 minute domination of Stamford was undone in the final seconds of the game - 

"Not Good Enough"

"Absolutely clueless...shocking result"

"Awful....

"How can you play against 10 and be that shit?"

"So glad didn't go"

"Fucking embarrassing"

"Worst result in a very long time"

"Is it too early in the season to jump on the "sack the manager" bandwagon?"

Honestly, I'm not mocking anyone's reaction to the events
of the 96th minute on Tuesday, as the fence immediately
behind me at LP will attest.....

When did we become so weak frit?

This weekend's game at home to Bishop Stortford is beginning to assume epic importance.  The recent nosedive in form and results after an excellent start to the season is threatening to turn from a dip in form to a typically Poppies full-blown calamity.  In the past couple of weeks the faithful chestnut of disquiet has been heard around Latimer Park - "That was the worst performance I've ever seen...."  Really?  The worst?  What, again?

Why do we regard a few defeats as irreputable proof of an onrushing apocalypse?  Is it just us?  Do other clubs routinely turn a couple of reverses into a full-blown meltdown and see such a run as the evidence of the end-of-times?  Do other clubs' supporters reach for the panic button as quickly as we do?  Do other fans treat back-to-back home defeats as proof the sky is falling, or that losing an FA Cup match is an omen of an inevitable footballing-holocaust?

And it's not just results that have us huddling together and fearing for the collapse of western society.  No Poppies player can ever be suffering from a slight knock, or have issues away from football that take precedence over the Poppies.  No, if a player doesn't feature it must only be because they have left us with no notice for our deadliest rivals, and probably haven't been paid in months....and I'd heard from a bloke who knows someone who delivers milk to a player's nan, that the club are in financial straits and that none of the players have been paid since the 2005-06 season.....

And when did we become such knee-jerk jessies that some of us genuinely want the Manager gone after barely a half a dozen league games?  A few negative online comments from a handful of bitter Banbury supporters and we want to form a posse and hound Hollyhead out of Latimer Park.  The four straight wins we started the season with all quickly forgotten in the stampede to railroad the Manager out of town.

What has turned us into such a bunch of fearful, hand-wringing, tale-tattling scaredy-cats?  What happened to showing a stiff-upper lip?  Remaining stoic in the face of adversity.  Shrugging off set-backs with a superior sneer?  When you consider and remember how many GENUINE disasters and prospective club-ending events we have survived over the years by showing a united front and fighting together, you have to wonder how we became so meek and fearful over a handful of games going against us?

We need to show more of these....

Hollyhead Honeymoon H'over

Well it lasted a little longer than many expected, but the latest occupant of the Poppies hot seat is finding out that our “knowledgeable” fans certainly know some things at least. They can spot when all's not well, based on more than just results.

Yesterday at Quorn had an air of defeat from before a ball was kicked. A tough draw to be sure, against a confident, upwardly mobile outfit who have barely lost at home for 2 years. Better teams than us might have found it difficult. But to arrive unable to fill the subs bench so early in the season? Was it just illness in the camp? The eleven out there seemed to be lacking leadership – they were strangely quiet throughout, except when complaining.  Quorn’s keeper made more racket than the lot of them, honking instructions more out of apparent boredom than anything else. He certainly didn’t have much to do.

Quorn are clearly a decent team. With the advantage of being used to their pellet-heavy plastic surface, they knocked it around well and were good at recycling possession. Meanwhile we delivered one unforced error after another. A late rally flattered the scoreline – we were lucky to escape a hiding. 

So where does this leave us? Still in a useful league position, but already badly shown up by three of the teams above us. It’s not too soon to say that Hollyhead has a real challenge on his hands. 

Brought in to be a continental-type coach, to work with a squad assembled for him (clearly the arrangement that Lavs couldn’t tolerate). But the much vaunted tactician, with his UEFA badge, sent us into a long campaign light in defence and top heavy in attack, allowed our most solid CB to leave, is already fielding players out of position and finding that having big guns up front is not much good if we can’t get the ball to them. Teams are already working out how to shut off the supply lines.

And the empathetic man manager who talks so well (and at such length…) about relationships is hinting darkly at “reasons” for players not being available, while we all ponder the ongoing Lobjolt mystery (ill? AWOL? abducted by aliens?).

Probably the only person there yesterday who left with a bigger smile than the Quorn manager was his predecessor, who couldn't have felt more vindicated if he'd buzzed overhead trailing a banner that said TOLD YOU SO.

"Boy, August feels like a LONG time ago...."

Say Cheesey!

If you’re feeling a little perturbed that our place in the Southern League Premier financial muscle ranking is now about 8th, with all that might mean this season, fortunately we do still have Poppies Media to cheer us all up.  We might be in danger of slipping behind several horribly rich hobby projects which will all be AFC whatever within 5 years, but off the field we are being spoiled...  Drone shots. Sexy slo-mo of training sessions. Thanoj walking dreamily through a corn field trailing a handful of grain. Soft focus little teasers that made even the unveiling of Brandon Barker look positively droolsome.  

And the cheesy player ‘previews’ of the next fixture were fun while they lasted. Rarely extending beyond "we’re really looking forward to putting on a show in front of all you lovely fans", they conjured images of players drawing lots on the bus as to who’s turn it was next, though probably AI did the actual work. Among the flurry of ideas cooked up in pre-season, not all can survive too much contact with the actual grind of a season - we get it. This stuff is harder than it looks.

However one area where we’ve really nailed it are the head shots that now pepper every team line-up. You’ve seen them - format borrowed from every big ballsy sports channel promo of the last few years, but rather than the usual old poses (moody, preening, shouty, badge kissing and crowd shushing), ours are charmingly fresh and in no way could have been improved by multiple takes.  Keep them coming guys!

Put 'em up put 'em up!

Chocks away!

Brum brum!

Did I water the plants?

Now THIS is a spliff

Plan B anyone?

It's fair to say that was a bit of a pasting from Spalding on Tuesday night.  Their wingers certainly enjoyed their evening more than I did.  The last time I saw anything carved open as effectively as our defence I was sat around a dining table with loved ones, wearing paper hats and pulling Christmas crackers.

Even when we were 2-0 up it was clear the game was still very much up for grabs and so it proved as Spalding set about us like hyped-up terriers, never giving us a moment on the ball and bombing forwards at every opportunity.  The difference to Saturday's slow motion bore-fest at Worcester could not have been more striking.

But, let's not get too disheartened.  We (just about) attracted another 4-figure gate for a midweek game, which isn't to be sniffed at.  The scoreboard operator has figured out how to make the numbers just about large enough to see, even though few of us liked what it was telling us.  The scoreboard itself is proving to be more of a jinx than an asset.  Two games.  Two defeats.  Do the math.  Other positives?  The pitch is playing pretty well so far.  As our opponents will testify.  Our poorly received new shirts don't look too bad in the flesh.  And the new camera gantry is an improvement.  Assuming looking more like an American maximum security prison guard tower than hastily thrown-up scaffolding is a positive....

Also, no-one knows better than us that titles and promotions aren't done and dusted this early in the season.  For the first half of last season this division was all about who was going to finish in the play-offs once we had stormed to the title.  We know what it's like to go off like a train and sweep all before us.  It guarantees nothing.  Every person leaving the game after out win at Telford last season was in no doubt which of the two teams they had just watched was going to be in the National North division this season, and let me tell you, they weren't wearing white....

Nile at the crossroads

For almost all of their time together, Nile Ranger and Kettering Town have been good for each other.  His signing last season injected a bit of star quality and even celebrity into our ranks, attracting national attention as we progressed in the Cup. Contrary to his disruptive track record he showed a good attitude and was unselfish - at times too much when trying yet again to set someone else up rather than having a crack himself. His goals return was steady, and many felt that Lavs withdrawing Nile in the playoff final cost us the game. 

Equally, Nile gained renewed exposure, a degree of career rehab, a reminder of his abilities to potential suitors and a rumoured decent whack per week!

So when he appeared to have moved on in the summer he went with all good wishes and his reputation high. But in his second act, if we can call it that, things are threatening to turn sour. True, he has been finding the net, deadly from close range if not the spot. But the ‘is he staying or not’ saga has become a distraction, generating social media content yes, but also suggesting he was fishing for a better offer but hasn’t yet had one. 

And now we are starting to see on-field antics that were absent last season.  On many occasions under Lavs he was brought on or off as part of the never ending rotation of that campaign, and showed no displeasure.  But at Long Eaton he left the field shaking his head and chuntering after being subbed, having been given most of the game to make an impact.  Then yesterday at Worcester was less strop, more full blown tantrum after a similar late withdrawal. Arms thrown out in disgust, gesticulating at the bench then appearing to point to Eddie as someone who should be taken off instead!  Which as it happens would have been very unfair on Eddie, who almost won us the game with the last kick. 

Hollyhead is on record as placing a high value on relationships and it will be interesting to see how he handles this one. If Nile can’t accept his role is to share striking duties with several other strong options, maybe it’s best if we part company before squad unity starts to suffer.  

Minnows Alert!!!

It would appear that the Great-Southern-League-Fixture-Gods have tweaked their fixture-abacus such that we'll be fully testing our promotion credentials over the next few weeks.  In a division where several deep pockets are funding several iddy-biddy clubs in a private battle to see who can be first to bankrupt them, we have a number of the miniscule main runners in our immediate sights.  All of them promoted way beyond their natural level.  All of them shelling out well over the odds for players who would normally laugh at an approach from them.  All of them utterly desperate to be seen to be serious rivals to the Poppies.

First up is the weird little speck of a club called Real Bedford, run like a bargain basement "Welcome to Wrexham" they aren't even the biggest football club at their location.  To be fair though, their Chairman has sufficient self-awareness to refer to himself as a budget Ryan Reynolds.  Their twitter-page may look more like a teenager's Death-Metal fan page than a football club site, but they are at least amusing in their efforts to manufacture some kind of rivalry with us....  Wanabee Poppies Rival Level - 6 out of 10

A couple of days later and Harborough Town drag their swollen, clanging bags of gold over the border to test their collection of mercenaries against us in a desperate attempt at validation.  Wanabee Poppies Rival Level - 12 out of 10.

Just over a week later yet we visit another bumpkin collection of inbreds, wildly over-inflated by obscene cash injections - Spalding.  This assumes they've finished carting in an instant stadium of shipping containers and hopefully employed a few able-bodied stewards to keep their small but angry collection of misfit fans under control for once.  Wanabee Poppies Rival Level - 7 out of 10.

Before September is out we are at home to the last of the "Little Four" in the form of Stamford - yet another club artificially financially bolstered, and, just like the others, still finding it difficult to attract more supporters.  Wanabee Poppies Rival Level - 9 out of 10, or 27 out of 10 if you include Drury and his childish antics.

Even the other fixtures in this period offer interesting challenges, with a home game against surprising league leaders Bishop Stortford and away to returning former non-league big boys, Worcester City, where between us and them we'll barely make a dent in their bloody 12,000 capacity stadium!

One thing is for sure, before the clocks go back this season we're going to have a good idea whether the Poppies 2025/26 vintage has got what it takes to attempt another title charge.

"Please Poppies, choose me!"