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