Time to dump the jinx

What with loitering at Latimer Park waiting for the referee to piss or get off the pitch last week while the great and good former players were held hostage in the hospitality lounge, can we finally agree that all variants of the Kettering Tyres shirts are utterly jinxed and should be pulped and buried in a deep landfill pit as soon as possible?

The famous 'tache and the infamous shirt

Bad news for all those who have just shelled out fifty notes for the latest iteration, but I won't be swayed on this.  And neither will you once you recall: -

The original shirts back in the 70's served only to wind-up the Football Association against us decades before they re-visited us with similar ire over Imraan's "Palestine Aid" shirts.  Other than garnering a few headlines the original shirts probably ended-up costing us money, what with printing costs, unpicking letters costs, replacing shirts etc.

I don't recall the Kettering Tyre shirts raising their shifty heads again until 2012 (if we've missed any recurrence before then please let us know) during the darkest of dark days at Nonce Park.  Come March in 2012 we were somehow just about holding onto our (admittedly lowly) place in the National League, competing (well, sometimes) against the likes of Wrexham, Fleetwood, Luton, Cambridge United, Grimsby, Barrow, Stockport, Lincoln City, Newport County and not forgetting, Hayes & Yeading.  

For reasons beyond understanding, Betfair thought it would be a bumper wheeze to sponsor our game against Stockport by reconstituting the Kettering Tyres shirts for this one game, but with their own logo front and centre.  National League sponsors, and rival online gambling company, Blue Square took immediate umbrage and various threats were handed down sufficient to encourage the club to say "thanks, but no thanks" to Betfair.

The only positive to come out of the entire affair was this promotional video produced by Betfair, which is by some margin, the highest point of our Non Park misadventure.

Betfair Big Match

Ten years ago the club put on a special day to mark the 40th anniversary of the Kettering Tyre shirts and numerous former players dutifully trooped up to Latimer Park to try to recall 90 minutes from 40-years previous.  Unfortunately, this was Latimer Park of 2016 vintage when games could get rained off on our pitch if someone as much as spilled half a pint of beer.  In the clubhouse.  The "new" old shirts had a run-out or two and were consigned to the bargain bin, having missed their "Big Day".

Fast forward 10 years with all of us huddled in the "Fan Zone" or in the Social Club waiting the Referee's leisurely calling off of another special "Kettering Tyres" commemorative game.  The former players, fully 10 years older than the last time they were dragged here, puffed their way up to the Hospitality lounge only to watch the rain with the rest of us.

By my (admittedly shaky) reckoning, this bloody shirt has raised its head four times.  Twice to threats of litigation and twice to abandoned fixtures.  Surely even WE are finally going to accept the inevitable and permanently bin this bloody jinx of a shirt?

A big tyre, chalk and cheesy smiles
Never let it be said "The Doog"
wasn't ahead of the game