It's the fate of almost all club chairmen, like almost all managers, to eventually incur unpopularity and by the end of his time at Rockingham Road Peter Mallinger was no exception. However, the depth of feeling which has been stirred by his death is proof that on a personal level he was a good man with his heart in the right place. He put a lot into Kettering Town and can be forgiven for some errors of judgement along the way.
I can’t claim any close association with PM but in his early days at the club – back when I often made a night of it in the bar after games – we chatted a few times and he was open and friendly – even in response to my clumsy attempts at probing questions. He even managed to be quite amiable on the occasion I was summoned – headmaster style – to his presence after an article that caused a bit of a reaction. True he banned Patgod a couple of times, but with a resigned shrug, as if to say “you know I have to do this don’t you?”
There would have been no club for PM to buy had it not been kept alive by the Trust, but only latterly in his reign did he permit an element of supporter representation at board level. If that was a disappointment, it is a better record than his successor. However, like Imraan, there is no denying the personal financial investment which Peter Mallinger put into the club until he – like Ladak – decided that enough was enough, frustrated by the club’s inability to sustain itself in a decaying ground with limited resources. It’s all of 13 years since PM went public on the lack of support from the local council and look where we are today. Compare that with a club like Burton Albion, then at a crappy old ground in the Northern Premier, now established in League Two in a shiny new stadium.
With Mallinger’s backing we very nearly achieved one of those goals in his first full season. It remains the only time in our history when we kicked off our final game, potentially just 90 minutes from the Football League. Providing Kidderminster lost and we won 7-0. Look away now if you don’t want to know the result.
The only thing that stopped us going up that season was a goalscorer. Not a 20 goal a season man, 10 would have done. The signing of Carl Alford was intended to put that right, but no two seasons are ever alike and we were not to threaten promotion again for another 5 years, when a surprise challenge was ultimately undone (again) by the lack of a quality cutting edge.
Alford was the final throw before the money started to run out, and Alford became the symbol of how times had changed when he was flogged to Diamonds in 1996. Maybe it was the best offer PM had and he couldn’t afford to be choosy, but there were times when he seemed to be out of tune with the sentiments of supporters. Remember the nonsense about changing our nickname to the Lions?
In terms of the most important decision of all – choice of manager – Peter Mallinger’s record was patchy. He inherited Graham Carr, took a punt on Gary Johnson which proved to be inspired rather too late, went for the cheap in-house option in Steve Berry then let him go after he’d engineered a miracle escape from the drop, brought back Morris for a three card trick of 2nd place, Wembley and relegation, again went for the in-house option in Carl Shutt who he backed to get us back up then fired for being unable to keep us there with half a squad, then appeared to lose the plot completely afterwards.
It would be fair to say that by the latter years of his time at Rockingham Road, PM’s energy was waning and he was looking for a way out. He’d taken KTFC as far as he could and wanted to find a successor who could offer a better future. Few would argue that he made a good choice, and it’s a pity that for whatever reason PM had taken his allegiance elsewhere when the Poppies were again up there in lights.
