Honestly, NOT a moan. Well, perhaps a bit of one....

So, what did we learn from the latest Fans Forum?  Lots of positive news about the club moving forward as a whole.  The best news being the imminent completion of a 50-year lease at Latimer Park, which kind of slid past without much further comment.  This is potentially monumental news.  With such a period of secure tender the club can truly invest in facilities such as additional terracing / seating as well as 4G training pitches and even qualify for previously unavailable grants towards such work.

George fielded the usual questions about relocating back into Kettering and straight-batted these as everyone has done for the past dozen years.  We all know there's literally no room within Kettering's current borders for a new stadium.  We might well end up 2 1/2 miles from the centre of town rather than 3 miles as present.  And pay millions for the privilege.  Frenchies Field is not the answer and I'd like someone in authority to finally nail that white elephant of an idea.

As we all know, everything in football, and life, costs money and the top table was straight with us that if we wanted better facilities, better players and better standards of football it would cost.  While we all kind of know this economic trade-off and our place within it, a few comments nagged away at me enough to mention them here.

At the risk of drawing George's ire again, he still wasn't entirely clear what the situation presently was in relation to our use of Alumasc's carpark.  Are we supposed to be paying?  Is it a voluntary contribution?  Still don't know.  What he WAS clear about was that next season we WILL be paying to use the facility, with, apparently, Alumasc's approval.  If this is the case I hope a method of paying is employed that is more efficient than a bucket collection as queues of traffic down Polwell Lane won't please the locals!

It was also stated that future Season Tickets won't be as good value as this season's one was.  I've got to say, this miffed me a bit too (perhaps I'm easily miffed?)  Poppies Season Tickets have always been notoriously shoddy value, other than the give-away season when Ladak led us a merry dance down to Nonce Park.  We have often looked at other clubs and envied their cracking offers and worthwhile "Early Bird" deals.  And then our ST offers were announced and you realised that if you were unlucky to miss a couple of games over the course of the entire season you pretty much paid more per game to attend than if you just rocked-up on the day.  And, the "benefit" of getting first dibs on tickets for BIG MATCHES was a moot point for much of the past dozen seasons!  And then there were the curtailed Covid seasons where ST holders missed out big time and had to suck it up.

This season's Season Ticket was an enjoyable "perfect storm" where the Management Team looked at what other clubs did with their "Early Bird" offers and, for the first time, made a similar offer to long-suffering Poppies fans.  Nothing special.  Just comparable to other clubs at our level.  And then we had a great cup run and, finally, a ST that counted for something!

By marking our card about new season's Season Ticket prices at this time, I was left with the feeling that the club somehow thought we had got away with something this season and not to expect such generosity again.  Perhaps I'm being too thin-skinned about this but we fans don't set the prices.  We just pay them.  Whether it is the highest admittance charge and highest beer costs in this division, we already shell out.  

Are we being told that the season ticket prices that THE CLUB SET was somehow unfair to the club?  I'd hate to believe so....

Will the 2024/2025 Season Ticket prove
to be the high watermark of Poppies value for money?

A win is a win is a win.

Why is it that after so many Poppies-watching decades we're still surprised when the last dozen games of the season suddenly appear as if out of nowhere?  And now, from out of a clear blue sky, here we are again.  Seemingly for months we've been stuck in a mid-season malaise of cancelled fixtures and grubby defeats, and now, BANG, we're staring down the barrel of rounding the final bend, hearing the bell for the 15th round within sight of the 18th hole (if you will excuse my mangled sporting metaphors).

Anyone looking at the title race from the outside would still have us pegged as slight favourites.  Obviously, having watched us change post FA Cup run from free-flowing footballing Gods into stumbling, shot-shy, defeat-fodder, we Poppies fans are unlikely to agree with this generous assessment.

But, in the final analysis, we are, despite a number of underwhelming performances in recent months, still in with as good a shot as anyone else to stumble to a title that seemingly no-one wants to clinch.  So far this season, nothing has guaranteed to bring on a run of bad form quite as certainly as going to the top of the table.

Despite jettisoning and loaning out entirely fit players only to pack our substitute bench with varying levels of crocks, we are grinding out just enough points to keep us all invested in a season that was showing every signs of developing full-blown post FA Cup blues.  Case in point?  Yesterday's win at Leiston.  The home team contrived to avoid scoring despite having the ball on our goal-line for at least 44 minutes in the first half and then missing a penalty in the second.  In between, former Poppies keeper Billy Johnson kindly gifted us our opening goal and Isiah scored his and our second goal with pretty much our only threatening attack in the second 45.

In many ways our recent performances more closely resemble our finish to last season than the majority of this.  Back when, by sheer force of will, Lavery squeezed fighting 90-minutes and important wins from a collection of previously under-performing players.  Obviously we would prefer a return to the imperious free-flowing, free-scoring fare of the pre-FA Cup run, but if by sheer gristle and throbbing, barely contained, T-shirt wearing aggression, Lavery threatens just enough out of the squad to get us over the line, I, for one, will take it.

It's been a while since we ended an article with a 
nice sunset.  This time taken from the comfort
of a happy, homeward-bound Poppies coach.