Poppies call upon old friend to inspect pitch ahead of Saturday's clash

Eager beavers Gloucester City are due at Latimer Park this coming Saturday, absolutely bursting with desperation to get three points closer to being top of the league ahead of the season being cancelled.

They will be gagging to force the Poppies to put out a team of any description that they can batter with their expensively assembled squad.

After Tuesday's postponement due to, ahem, a frozen pitch, the Poppies will again test the playing surface before Gloucester's mercenaries blitzkrieg into Burton.

Obviously, being incredibly keen to fulfil the fixture, Kettering Town have asked our old friend, and expert of the Latimer Park pitch, Russell Slade to come and perform the pre-match inspection.....

*Splash, splash*

"There's no f*cking way this pitch is playable,
Call the game off NOW!!!"

*Splash, splash*

The National League Committee Strike Back!

 It looks like that even a humble non-league blog isn't exempt from the all-encompassing tentacles of the National League committee!  Imagine our horror today at Patgod Towers as we opened the following letter - 

RULE 69.1

Dear Patgod

The League has been made aware that you have made and / or are considering making derogatory comments, statements, links and perhaps even, God forbid, a doctored meme about the National League.

I am therefore required to remind you of the League rule 69.1 specifically:

"Any blog that seeks to point out the patent inadequacies of the National League or any member of its committee, despite their obvious shortcomings is liable to expulsion, fines or a sulky pout."

In the event of this blog being in breach of being a bit sarky about us, the League may award previous of your articles to rival blogs, although what they may make of them is anyone's guess.

Don't you have the faintest idea of how hard it is for us to run this league?  How many chummy all-expenses paid jollies we're missing out on?  How incredibly difficult it is to look as though we care about anything other than keeping our promotion slots up into the EFL?  That and bending over backwards to try and get York City out of the Northern section of course, although they don't help us by being unremittingly shite.

The League requires by 12pm Friday 12 February your definitive position whether you are refusing to stop your digs at us so the League can act accordingly.  Probably we'll have a bit of a hissy fit, blame everyone else and then resign en masse.

Kind regards.....

Are you confused by what's going on with the National League?

 If so, you are not alone.  It is PATGOD's intention to lay out all the facts just to show the squirming contents of the can of worms opened by the League Management's collective shrugging of their shoulders at a situation they have created.

Well, it certainly WAS our intention to lay the facts out in a full, frank and coherent way.  But, after literally minutes of study we believe this is entirely beyond our very basic talents.  All we know is that, basically the minted and/or promotion chasing clubs want to carry on, while those with nothing to play for and/or have teetered on the brink of extinction previously want the season to end.  And the National League committee simply hope that someone else makes the decisions.

Thanks to our brand new best friends at Dulwich Hamlet FC we no longer have to scratch our heads and guess what's going on as they have done all the work for us!  Good for them.  And good for us!

Click here - let DHFC explain everything to you!

Thank you Dulwich!

So, that's it then? Or maybe not.....

 News is filtering through that a number of clubs who think they may have an outside sniff of promotion from National League North (and York City) are eager for the season to continue.

Lack of income, risk to players, making unjustifiable journeys are, seemingly, no hinderence to some clubs who are utterly desperate to be playing Altrincham and Kings Lynn again next season.

Promotion would put the lucky clubs just one further promotion from the EFL, which they, deep down, believe they are still playing in....

So, that's it then?

What a curious week - 

• We finished with a barely enough players for a basketball game against Leamington after a watch-through-the-fingers amateurishly poor and ill-disciplined performance which would give a bad name to Sunday morning football.
• 
  
• We found out that the funds we thought we were to receive to help us play until the end of the season were going to be loans rather than grants.  A small but important distinction!
• 
  
• The League then threatened any club with expulsion who put the long-term survival of their club and the health of their staff ahead of the weekend's fixtures in a season already looking as though it won't even reach the halfway point.
• 
  
• Club owner Ritchie tore the League hierarchy a new one.
• 
  
• The Football Association are so desperate for Spurs to be the all-time top FA Cup goal scorers they continue to give them the easiest possible draw in each round.
• 
  
• Any rash attempt at a home game this week would be cancelled for any one or a combination of rain / ice / snow / covid / lack of non-suspended players
• 
  
• And my four raffle prizes from the Christmas Square draw are still uncollected.

The smart, as well as much of the dumb money is on the season not restarting.  Increasingly it is difficult for anyone except desperate York City fans a.k.a. #promotetheminstermenregardless to see how the 2020-21 season can reach any sort of conclusion.  

We would have 28 games to play in 16 weeks.  Doesn't sound impossible until (A) you remember we play on a pitch that can become unplayable if a player accidentally knocks his water bottle over, and (B) clubs are being "invited" to put themselves in considerable and possibly unsustainable debt just to keep the season going.  And some clubs have far more games left to play than us.

And as much as the whole league wants to give York City the chance to bottle the play-odds yet again I can't believe anyone would like to have their own club go bust just to laugh at them?

As much as York's inability to accept they play at this level continues to amuse,
this image of their soon to be vacated Bootham Crescent caught my eye this week.

Just for the most fleeting of moments I thought I was looking at Rockingham Road,
and it fair brought a lump to my throat!

....just in case you'd forgotten!

A home fixture at last. Well, sort of.....

Overheard on the phone on Saturday:- 

Kettering: The game's off.  Snow and rain overnight has left standing water despite some covers being on the pitch. 

Leamington: We told you to reverse the tie and play at ours. 

K: We were drawn at home! 

L: Well that doesn't matter. We wanted a home tie.  

K: Well we couldn't risk your floodlights failing again 

L: Yes that was unfortunate that night. It was lucky your people found our Chairman locked in the floodlight control room.  We thought we'd lost him. 

K: Well we've looked at the weather and it seems dry on Sunday and Monday as well as this afternoon.  So let's play it on Monday. 

L: I'll speak to our Manager....... no - he can't do Monday as he's washing his hair. 

K: er.... but he's bald! 

L: Oh no sorry, he says he's got a zoom call with his psychiatrist on his anger issues, so he can't do Monday. 

K: If that's firm then we'll have to go for Tuesday but there's a weather warning for heavy rain - so it'll likely be waterlogged. 

L: Come and play at ours then. 

Phone goes dead.

Ninety minutes away from oblivion....

 

The footballing Gods have really had it in for us this season.
We had to relinquish our Cup run with a non-contested whimper.

We've got very little going for us as Poppies fans.
But one of those things is the fact we are the top all-time
FA Cup goalscorers.  A fact we hug painfully
to our bosom like a mewling child.

At time of writing we are fully eight goals ahead of Spurs.

So what do the footballing Gods do?  They give Spurs the lowest placed 
team left in the FA Cup, creating the largest gulf between 
two teams in this competition.  Ever.

Those eight goals could disappear pretty damn quickly.