Those were the days....

 I hope that you, like me, have been enjoying "The Big Match Revisited" on Saturday mornings on ITV4.  They are presently showing games from the 1979-1980 season, which is absolutely prime Soccer Panini Sticker Album territory for those of us born in the mid 60's.  All those memories brought back to life.  Certain player stickers you could never track down and those player stickers you seemed to have in every pack you bought - yes, I'm looking at you Des Bloody Bremner!

Heaving non-socially distanced terraces, tasty non-socially distanced tackling and top division playing surfaces that make Latimer Park look like Wembley - ah yes, "The Big Match Revisited" is a refreshing blast from the past.  A past that in many ways was a far more innocent time.  Big bald Brian Moore held the programme together and answered viewers letters on air.  But, not only did Brian read aloud and answer the letters, he also gave out the writers full name and full address.  Live on air!  Can you imagine that happening these days?

Being the 1979-80 season we also get to see a number of the old stadia we remember seeing as kids.  No new grounds and certainly no all-seaters back then.  I imagine the newest ground back then would have been built several decades earlier.  Other than the odd lick of paint and the occasional new toilet cake none of these grounds had materially changed since the days when Adolf Hitler was getting ideas above his station.  And some of these grounds didn't change much in the decades ahead.  Nine years after this game at Selhurst Park we also filled this exact piece of crumbling terracing.

"The Big Match Revisited" didn't just concentrate on the, well, Big Matches, but also showed games from all four divisions.  This week we saw footage of the 4th division clash between Walsall and Peterborough, a game full of Poppies connections.  Both managers were future Poppies dug out dwellers - Alan Buckley for the Saddlers and Peter Morris for the Posh.  Recent Poppies departee Billy Kellock pretty much won the game single handed for Peterborough with a couple of goals, assisted with a third goal from future Poppies pie-eater - Micky Gynn.  And another future Poppies, er, on-pitch signing, Phil Chard weighed in with a good attempt on target.

Added to the usual sightings of Steve Daly and Dennis Mortimer there's enough here to make Poppies fans of a certain vintage tune in every week.

King Billy Kellock

Hungry Micky Gynn

The Invisible Man Phil Chard

Grumpy but pondering.....

It strikes me the club have the solution to the problem of season ticket renewals in their own hands.

Their ideas have merit.  They've simply pitched them at the wrong level.  Instead of a 50% reduction for one season or 35% off for two seasons, make the percentages 75% and 50%.

Even basing the discounts on the dodgy formula of 21 x £15 (£315) rather than the £270 cost of an actual season ticket, the put-upon punter has these options -

One season discount price - £79

Two season discount.  Next couple of years ar £157 per season.

These prices would be a lot fairer, and would generate a lot of goodwill within the fanbase, which invariably means we are more disposed to spend our money at Latimer Park anyway.  

With better marketing the club should make all this and more back through the new commercial lounge.  It's a great facility which, i fear, most supporters still aren't fully aware of.

And, if the club truly have a lot of season ticket holders who are willing to write off last season and pay full price again, they win again.  Fair play to anyone who thinks this way and has the finances to back it up.

David and crew, it's back to you....

Older and Grumpier

Gauging what to do with regard to Season Tickets for the coming season was never going to be easy for the club.  But surely the Board could have come up with something better than this?

The bottom line is that for a payment of £220 last season a season ticket holder got to attend league games at Latimer Park twice.  Four more games via our variable streaming service is neither here nor there.

Of course the situation that developed wasn't the club's fault, but neither was it the supporters'.  Yet the supporters, particularly those who pay in advance, are going to be left disgruntled by the club's actions.

The two options the club has given season ticket holders certainly couldn't be called "generous".  50% off for one season, or 35% off each season for two seasons.  Not exactly giving much back there.  Particularly when one realises that 50% off ISN'T 50% off the already hefty £270 season ticket cost.

No, in a move of Macivellian scheming even Boris Johnson would consider untoward, a renewing Season ticket holder won't get 50% off the season ticket price as they might expect from the initial wording of the "offer."  No, they would instead receive a 50% reduction on what they would pay if they paid on the gate 21 times next season.

So, instead of getting a moderate rebate of a 50% of £270 and paying £135, the much abused season ticket holder gets a 50% saving on 21 × £15.  Meaning they will be paying 50% of £315.  Which is £157.

The same, twisted logic is used on the second option offered.  35% off the £315 figure rather than the £270 one.

If you added the £220 paid last season to the £157 required this season and divide by 23 (2 games last season and 21 this) the put upon ST holder will be paying just over £16 per game.  Hardly much of a deal.

Even if the club offered an actual 50% reduction on the season ticket price one would still average over 15 quid over the course of the 23 games.  Again, scarcely the bargain of the century.  And that's assuming you want or can afford to buy another season ticket.  Because if you don't or can't, well you get sweet f.a.

I genuinely cannot fathom how the club has managed to drop the ball so badly on this one.  One almost wonders if Imraan was consulted for old times sake to come up with these numbers and this shoddy offer.  Will the club look again at this?  Frankly, they should.  And quickly.

So old and grumpy nowadays

 I'm not entirely sure when I graduated from thrusting, youthful firebrand to boring old fart but I fear it was quite a while ago.  I should have noticed the mounting evidence over the years.  I suddenly felt the need to have a special thick pair of socks and gloves for matches held during the colder months.  I somehow acquired a flask for a nice cup of warming tea.  A hipflask manifested, comfortingly in my inside pocket.  

Players stopped being older than me.  They were the same age as me.  Then younger than me.  Then young enough to be my offspring, or even my offspring's offspring.  Then Managers went from being old men to being the same age as me to being younger than me.  It's also happened to club Chairman for crying out loud!

But the most telling sign of advancing years is that whenever you see a new Poppies kit the immediate reaction is to roll your eyes and declare it the worst kit ever.  And to prove it, this is just what I have done!

I mean, c'mon....the red kit's design makes it look like it's been repeatedly run over and I'm pretty sure we might be looking at another "PHS" kit malfunction where the red looks far pinker under floodlights.  And then the sponsor logo charmingly throws a bit of unwelcome green into the proceedings.  Which brings me to the away version, where we are making the (probably correct) assumption that none of our rivals are going to be pedantic with their choice of keeper's kits?  There's two main reasons no-one wears green.  It's  widely acknowledged by colourologists to be the least happy of colours.  And you tend to blend in with the playing surface.  Reasons enough to be wary when you already have players who can't spot each other with simple passes.....

Nice lads.  Naff kits

Congrats to Broadchurch

No post for a month, and then two in a day.  We're spoiling you.  

Well done to Broadchurch for the demolition of spineless Hereford who tried to hide behind their one goal lead for almost the entire Trophy final.  Hereford haven't been that meekly cowardly since Russell Slade single-handedly got a game called off at an admittedly damp Latimer Park to save his job for another week. Spoiler alert - it didn't work and he was signing on the dole just a few days later.

Anyway, Hereford, you a bunch of big-time bottling Charlies, and Broadchurch, well done.  Particularly after you've had your recent troubles.

Well done chaps

Finally Final Day

Well, folks, it's finally FA Trophy final day.  We're not entirely sure how it's happened but apparently the Poppies WON'T be part of the showpiece event.

We're as shocked as you are.  Like you, we assumed that every 21 years we troop down to North London to wonder how we lose a Final we dominate.  Regular as clockwork.  

We've checked back and apparently we were knocked out of the Trophy back in January by our newest bogey team - Leamington.  No, we can't remember the game either despite it featuring front and centre on the club website for a FULL FOUR BLOODY MONTHS!

I guess the game has been scrubbed from our collective memories.  It must have been a dull, nondescript affair.  Not a game featuring failing Leamington floodlights (again), us shipping three goals and three players and ending not short of midnight.....No  don't recall any of that.

Well, whatever happened, two clubs have somehow managed to keep enough players fit and paid since January to reach today's final.  Our old, entitled friends from Hereford will be playing Hornchurch.  Or, as the media should be screaming - "Former Poppies 'keeper takes on former Poppies boss!"

That's right folks.  It's the big one.  The clash of former Poppies titans we've all been waiting for.  In the blue corner it's Skinny, bearded, MacGregor-strutting Paddy, Paul (Whiplash) White.  In the red corner it's baldy, CVA- blocking (Miserable) Mark Stimson.

But Patgod,  we hear you ask, with both teams boasting a Poppies connection, who should we be supporting in the final?  Well, we had some great days with Whitey between the sticks, but he has since joined up with the biggest cocks in non-league.  And Stimson?  He was our unfortunate manager during an impossible period, but he did try to prevent our survival by challenging the CVA.

Tricky.  Can you want both teams to lose?  Sure you can.  We're Kettering supporters after all.  We have enough bitterness to go around....

Go team Whitey!

Go team Stimson!

Fame at last. Kind of.

As the few shops we have left in Kettering are starting to reopen we could all find ourselves in the Newland Centre more often.

When moving between HMV and, er, another store, you might very well come across a display case decked out with Poppies memorabilia from past decades.

It was heartening for us to see, among the treasured items from our, ahem, illustrious past, an old issue of Patgod, proudly front and centre to catch the eye of the shopping public.

Dated from the very early 1990's when we had literally just watched, goggle-eyed, Mark English being driven away by the Old Bill, any glow of pride at seeing this blast from our past was tempered by the thought that this issue was almost 30 years ago.  Suddenly the inclusion of an issue of Patgod seemed to fit in with the historical aesthetic the Newland Centre was aiming for.  An oldie, but a goldie.

Original issues from this period rarely change hands.  If you were lucky enough to stumble a collector willing to sell a copy you may well have to shell out up to the original purchase price of 80p add this artifact to your collection of prized possessions.

Coming soon, to a particularly moderate episode of Antiques Roadshow near you.....