Yep, another away game.....

 

.....and another fine day and lovely Suffolk sky.
Let's see how the weather looks for our home
game next Saturday.  Hint - we're hosting
Redditch, so it's likely to be crappy in every way.

It's all getting a bit silly now!

As the Weather-Gods conspire against us once again we are left wondering what the Poppies have done to 2026 for this year to treat us so badly.  So far this year all we can guarantee is that if we are at home the weather will destroy us, and if we are away from home it is certain to be a lovely day.

3rd January - HOME TO STRATFORD and after a non-descript Christmas, meteorologically speaking, the home game to Stratford is called off after we are plunged into a new Ice Age.  Yes, that's right.  Latimer Park was more welcome to Mammoths and Sabre-tooth Tigers than fair-to-middling non-league footballers.

Brrrr.....!

10th January - AWAY TO LEISTON where the only thing raining on us were Leiston goals.  Sunny day and obligatory lovely Suffolk sunset.

Lovely in Leiston

17th January - HOME TO ALVECHURCH and after indulging a teasing matchday official we have to accept that our flooded pitch isn't going to miraculously dry out simply because we've all just bought our drinks.  Few held out much hope of a game after Thursday brought almost 10-years worth of rain to the NN15 region*

Soggy Latimer Park - fit only for ducks I'm afraid....

24th January - AWAY TO BISHOP STORTFORD and the sunglasses are out as both the weather and the team bask contentedly.

Bootiful in Bishop Stortford

27th January - HOME TO SUDBURY and after having the previous attempt to play Sudbury thwarted by Storm Bram towards the end of 2025, the rescheduled fixture is kiboshed by Storm Chadra as Latimer Park again succumbs to the waves. 

Or perhaps swans....?

* Give or take

The Kettering Town (Poppies) Popular People’s Front - by John Cecil

The Kettering Town (Poppies) Popular People’s Front is a new organisation being set up by

supporters of Kettering Town FC to provide a transparent, honest, trustworthy, sincere,

honest, innovative, reliable, honest, collaborative, progressive and honest working body of

supporters run by the supporters and accountable to the organisers of the group with the

simple aim of making sure supporters have full transparency of ongoings at our football club

with a representative gaining a place in the back seat of the Kettering Town FC Chairman’s

car at all times that he is travelling to and doing business on behalf of KTFC. We will leave no

stone unturned and will be the new voice on KTFC Chitter Chatter keeping all fans abreast of

the workings and ongoings at our wonderful Football Club.

We should not be confused with the newly formed Kettering Town (Poppies) Supporters

Truth who, in turn are nothing to do with The Kettering Town (Poppies) Supporters Trust

and sound nothing like them as their aim is to privately monitor the ongoings and financial

decisions of The Trust and will be open, honest and transparent with their findings.

One of the aims of The Truth is to explore the possibility, with the club, of raising the

concession age at The Turnstiles to 67 in line with the DWP. Our expert financial board

member suggests that if just 2.5% of our 800 diehards fall into this age bracket that will

amount to 20 x £5 x 42 games over 2 seasons raising £4,200 for something like improving

the Poppies bar toilet facilities, although work may have already begun on this as at the last

Saturday home game there was still blue paper towel in one of the dispensers at 2.20 PM.

A suggestion by Chairman, Blain, is that also some elder people continue in full time work

beyond 67 therefore he is suggesting that people have a digital copy of their P60 on their

phones to show at the turnstile to prove that they are not receiving a regular wage.

When asked to comment on the above a member of the Kettering Town (Poppies) Travelling

Supporters Army (Broughton division), PT, said “Well, I dunt really know much about that,

me ol’ duck. I were pissed at the last meeting as air Rich was late turning up. I do know we

got a car up for Needum Market next Satdy.”

The Kettering Town (Poppies) Supporters bar 1966 committee have put forward plans to

introduce a Membership scheme with a one-off payment of £20 entitling members to 5%

off all drinks consumed on a Tuesday lunch time between Noon and 1400 hrs. All profits will

go towards the Football Club’s initiative to install a side pond at the South West corner of

the ground to allow the pitch to permanently drain into during future tropical downpours.

The Kettering Town (Poppies) Litter pickers Association, who’s membership has recently

doubled, have pledged the £5 note they found at the back of the Tin Hat Stand recently to

club coffers and have obtained 73p in loose change that will also be redirected to the club

once rounded up. We thank them for their transparency and integrity.

In other news Terrapin Christian of the Pitcairn Island branch of the Kettering Town

(Poppies) ANZAC supporters Alliance has requested scarves (Preferably Poppies) to be sent

to him so that they can decorate his new bar on the island.

Finally, and rather unfortunately, Gee White, representative of the Kettering Town (Poppies)

Digital Online Media News Agency has had to issue the following brief statement.

“The recent tweet on our very public Snapbook page in no way represents the views of the

group and was sent out in error. When we posted “Go get those pesky Inuits” it was just one

of us trying to explain how World War 3 could be initiated. It was not intended for a wider

audience and we will be issuing a full apology to The Kremlin once we have found somebody

that had absolutely nothing to do with the original post and speaks a bit of Russian.”

"Oi, no standing on the yellow lines
- we can't see owt!"

The above article was created, composed, originated, written and produced by John Cecil, based on an original idea by John Cecil, so if you feel slighted by anything you have read, please feel free to give him the evil eye in the social club and not me for once....

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

Sometimes you simply can't catch a break

When pondering this post I was initially thinking of the recent, shocking passing of Roly Fox.  He of the painfully dull procedural speeches and also he of the friendly, twinkling, mischievous warmth that even breached the heart of this old, wizened hack.  Yesterday was the first Poppies Travel Coach trip since we lost Roly and it was sad not to exchange a few hopeful words with him while waiting to board.

The coach set off on time, but, I think it's fair to say, this is pretty much where our good fortune on the day ran out.  

Personally speaking, this long trip to Leiston couldn't have come at a worse time.  I was feeling quite rough.  In fact, we had already stopped off at a chemist on our way to the coach where the pharmacist wove tales of potential horror from my described symptoms.  He didn't quite reach for the garlic bulbs or administer the last rites, but I sensed he wasn't far off from these actions.  When we boarded the coach my voice was barely more than a painfully croaky whisper.  Perhaps no bad thing for my fellow travellers, but you'd need to check with them.....

When we were no more than 10 miles from Leiston our coach, and we soon discovered, the players' coach ran into road works that completely barred our way.  Frustratingly, the road we needed was clear and in front of us, with our turn onto the Leiston road in easy view.  Step forward a noble safety contractor in the employ of Suffolk County Council, who, seeing our plight used his common sense.  He moved a few cones and advised a works lorry to shift slightly to allow us to pass.  He then personally escorted us through the couple of hundred yards of blocked-off road and allowed us to continue on our way.  His day was not impacted and 60-odd Poppies players, official and fans weren't horribly inconvenienced.  We all cheered this stout yeoman as our coach driver horned our appreciation and off we trundled to Leiston, the players right behind us also waving happily.

At least, he could have done this.  If he wasn't a prick.

In reality, he DID move some cones to give us just about room for the coaches to perform dangerous about-faces on the cramped East Anglian roads and take an extended tour of the back lanes of this delightful part of the world.  Numerous cars and pedestrians had to make way, sometimes precariously so, to allow our slow, muddy progress past, among other places of interest, Snape Maltings where the good lady and I had watched a leg of the Tour of Britain whoosh past a couple of years ago while holidaying nearby.  A fabulous spectacle on roads far more suited to bicycles than a pair of 20-tonne coaches....

Still.  If that was the worst that happened today....

Welcome to Suffolk

After an admittedly enjoyable half an hour at a lovely cafe in "downtown Lesiston" we headed to the stadium, choosing to enter via the turnstile rather than simply wander into the ground through the most enormously open entrance.  Missus was stymied from a concession entrance as Leiston's is set at 65, unlike most clubs' 60 years old. And of course the Poppies which is set at a helpful 175 years of age.

And onto the game.....when it started.

The Poppies turned up with a full home kit, including our red socks.  Oops!  Everyone knows that Leiston, although they play in blue and are known as "The Blues" have a sartorial quirk of playing in red (ah....) socks.  Ten minutes past 3pm, when the home team dug through their washing bag for some blue socks, we finally started

I find that I don't really fall into either the "Shut up and support the club" or the "Everything is broken, we're doomed" camps that our fanbase seems to be polarising into.  I can see that most of our players have ability.  They are fit and can play the game.  I can also see that we are so lightweight that I'd fancy my ancient legs in a 50/50 challenge with any of them.  I'm not sure I couldn't outjump the majority of them too.  I can see that we are one big, hard defender (like Connor Johnson), one tough midfielder (like Devon Kelly Evans) and one bristling forward (like Johnny Edwards of St Ives vintage) away from having a pretty good team.  But we don't have these players.  Instead we have a creme brulee of a squad.  It seems tough at first look, until slight pressure is applied and then it becomes a soft, gooey mess.

I think Liam could be the man to make, if not a silk purse from the sow's ear this season has become, he might at least make it a more decorated and pleasing sow's ear.  If we've acquired the art of hanging onto a Manager for longer than a season (and that's seasons of the year and not a footballing one....) he might end up doing well here.

In keeping with Patgod's established ethos, the less said about the actual game, the better.  A few comments though would be fair.  I had to go through it, and I don't see why you should get off scot-free.

The Leiston No.6 was one of the least able footballers I've ever seen who successfully touched the ball about a third as often as he successfully blundered into our players.  All under the understanding eye of the referee who simply must have been a family member or close personal friend.

We conceded yet another goal to an unopposed header.  Less understandable this week as all our back four players were 6 foot plus, rather than our usual set up of a back 6 at 4 foot each.

Billy Johnson spent the first half of the game trying to hand us a goal, as he usually helpfully does with his variable distribution, but we continually declined his invitations, presumably intent on earning our goals at Leiston this season.

Welcome to a "Worldie"

At 1-1 Billy produced an excellent save to deny Andoh's usual goal at a stage in the game where

EVERY SINGLE PERSON in the ground would have had us down as the only possible winners.  Within minutes we had managed to turn this around with our usual aplomb.  Rowe looked unlucky to pick up 2 yellow cards, the second for, what looked to everyone except the referee and the shrieking forward, like a well timed tackle.  Moments later and we're 2-1 down.  Even then, we chased an equaliser against 11 men only to be gunned down with 2 more goals in injury time.  The last, a penalty 99 minutes into a game with 5 minutes injury time.

Again, we had spells where we looked good and outplayed the hosts for large sections of the game (the same as we did at Harborough) only to ship goal after goal to a team that were no great shakes, but when in front of goal they put the bloody thing in it.  They didn't attempt an additional flick or backheel, or powder-puff it gently to the keeper.  They aimed wide of Alexander and put their laces through it. 

It was too much for some of our number on the terraces.  But, I've noticed increasingly that we do have a lot of fans who have no concept of how we can't win every game, every week, against every team.  I would also like to personally escort, via the time machine I've yet to invent, some of our bleating fans back to the season where we started at Nene Park and finished at Steel Park when we genuinely DID see some of the worst games EVER.

Welcome to yet another lovely Suffolk sunset

So, time for the coach home, and surely all the day's reverses were behind us?  Guess again.

After dropping off at Latimer Park, those of us expecting to shortly disembark in Kettering town centre were out of luck as the newest coach we've ever had (2024!) developed a braking fault and refused to start again.  Trooped into the Club house and ordered taxis.  Yep.  Great end to a great day.

Except it's not quite the end of our misery.

Up on Youtube pops up everyone's least favourite follower of shite football - Mullered - who was today at (have you guessed yet....) bloody Leiston to capture our capitulation in all its HD glory under the hosts ever grumbly state-the f*cking-obvious dreary observations.  It has become apparent over the past few seasons that his appearance at our games presages nothing except underperformance and defeat.  Jinx does not even come close to covering this guy.  What was wrong with covering the table-topping clash between Spalding and Harborough FFS?  Why drag your gloomy, lumpen fatalism over to Suffolk to bugger up OUR weekend?

Off to bed.  Fully expect house to burn down overnight.

Still, at least Roly would have found today grimly amusing!

Use it or lose it

We've all been looking at the comings and goings at Corby Town FC like we're shortly going to be looking at the Boxing Day sales.  Do we want or need any of the items on display or are we purchasing just because they're on offer?  Perhaps we've gone too long since our last brush with oblivion to truly recall the horror that comes with watching your Manager and best players (plus Tyrone Lewthwaite) depart.  None of it at Corby seems acrimonious.  They simply don't have the money to honour contracts and their staff are taking their services elsewhere.  The club will replace departed players and staff and hopefully carry on.  And hopefully budget more realistically in future?

Rarely a week seems to pass when you don't read of another non-league club going to the wall, or re-constituting at a lower level.  In the last couple of seasons we lost Coalville not long after they gave us a good thumping in Leese's last pitch-side, shrugging exercise in Poppies colours.  Bang - they resigned from the league.  A season earlier, the latest club to play out of Nuneaton dropped out of the league part way through the season.  Both demises handed us some good players to boost our own flagging fortunes, but were calamitous to the supporters from Nuneaton and Coalville.  Farsley Celtic, another club we have played against in the past 12-months has also, through complete ownership mis-management ceased trading.  A cursory glance at non-league social media throws up many more clubs, large and small, that have simply thrown in the towel.  Just today, Bedlington Terriers FC have announced their "folding with immediate effect."

Years ago, the news of a single club forced to cease trading would echo around football.  These days such news barely gets mentioned.  Were it not for re-tweets or Facebook posts, we probably wouldn't even know the half of it.  And yet, behind every short social media announcement there are people for whom that club meant everything.  Supporters, volunteers and officials for whom that club held a unique place in their affections.  The next, empty Saturday to be dreaded.  And then the week after and the week after that.  

Most of us don't have to try too hard to remember us being in this position just over a decade ago when we were attempting to extricate ourselves from the shiny, but deadly pit in Irthlingborough and grasping at a lifeline from Corby.  Sure, Corby made a few bob out of the arrangement, but they didn't have to help out.  They could just have just as easily turned away and then what would have become of us?  We may well have hung in there just about, but I very much doubt we'd have enjoyed the promotions and FA Cup run we have had since.

But, such is the nature of football and football supporters that bad times are soon forgotten in the immediacy of a poor performance or other transient disappointment.  I think this is why most of us who are 50+ at Latimer Park seem to be able to take the odd reverse with more equanimity than some of our younger, more hot-headed brethren.  We know the precarious nature of football at this level.  How much everything costs.  How reliant you are on goodwill and volunteers.  How buying that extra Klondike, or pint in the bar rather than a nearby pub, a replica shirt, or bobble hat means so much to the club.  How each interaction gives us a fighting chance of continuing when other clubs struggle or fall.  If you have these thoughts always kicking around in the back of your mind, the odd defeat or under-par performance, whilst annoying on the surface, is very soon put into it's appropriate context.  

As a case in point, after today's game, the Trust Christmas draw will take place.  We've all been badgered into buying tickets, seemingly since last Summer.  Another hand reaching out for our hard earned money.  But, t's not for them.  It's more Kettering people putting effort and time into something that doesn't specifically benefit them.  It's to benefit all of us and hopefully help in some small way to continue to give us a club that we can moan and gripe about for many years to come, beyond the recently celebrated 153 we've so far enjoyed.

Hopefully coming to a non-league ground
near you for a long time to come.

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