We'll miss you!

Snake. Judas. ****. Just some of the messages on Paul Cox’s leaving card. Such spite to a departing manager is rare for even the most vitriolic among us. Which is to say most of us, but it’s easy to understand why.  Managers generally leave this club for one of these reasons;

1. bad results / bust up with the chairman / something a bit dodgy going on

2. a bigger club comes in

The first column is heavily stacked and usually means goodbye at our level.  In the second: Atkinson, Jones, Buckley, Cooper…  We could handle all of those because they were trading up to obviously bigger clubs, and carried with them a bit of hope that their Poppies association would give us something of a warm glow if they went on to greater things. I for one am thrilled whenever Barrow earn so much as a point with MC at the wheel.

No League club was going to come in for Cox, not even Newcastle United, but we could have accepted a National League outfit deciding he was their man, maybe Notts County if they wanted someone with affordable travelling expenses and good contacts with conspicuously overweight target men.

Boston?  Good luck with the airport bookshelf management speak and trying to unlock the “potential” of a club that has already had decades of the advantage of a superb ground and has achieved zilch apart from a single fraudulent promotion that didn’t end well.     

Still, as we said in the card, don’t be a stranger you slithering money-grabbing ****!  

  

No messing around!

 

Call me old-fashioned but what
was wrong with new Gaffers
holding a scarf above their heads?

Paul Cox and the six stages of grief

 (1) DENIAL

"Cox has quit?  No! You're kidding me?  What a f**king prick!"

(2) ANGER

"Cox - what a f**king prick!"

(3) BARGAINING

"Couldn't we talk him around with a few extra bob?  The money-grabbing f**king prick!"

(4) DEPRESSION

"Well, that's all our good players heading to Boston with that f**king prick"

(5) ACCEPTANCE

"He was always going to leave when the right offer from the right club came in.  It goes to show how shite Telford are...

Looks like we'll have to replace the f**king prick"

(6) HOPE

"I wonder if he'll insist on taking Isaac Stones with him as he rates him so highly?  F**king non-footballer spotting prick!"

You can leave the coat.
Perhaps one of us will grow into it...

There but for the grace of God WAS us!

If a week is a long time in politics, seven years is an eternity in football.  This is nowhere better highlighted than by looking at what has happened to the Poppies and Corby Town over the past one and three quarter World Cups.  

Not so long ago I recall basking in the sun, watching the Poppies team jog heavily around the pitch at Chalfont St Peter in the last game of a season where we were playing just one step up from the UCL League.  While we went through our lazy paces, having won the league a few weeks earlier by being thumped by Rugby Town, Corby Town were celebrating after succeeding in a "Winner Takes All" match with Poole Town for a place in National League North.

We had bumped along at the lowest Southern League level for a couple of seasons after being in free-fall for a couple of seasons before that.  Well, that's if "free-fall" adequately covers being relegated four divisions in just three seasons....

From the environs of sunny Mill Meadow Stadium that April afternoon you couldn't foresee a time when we were likely to ever be on an even keel with the Steelmen let alone overhaul them.  They were looking forward to games against former League giants like Stockport and future League giants like Harrogate.  And perennial middling water-treaders like Boston of course.  We were hopeful of at least give a game to the likes of Paulton Rovers and Kings Langley.

But, as you may well have heard, football is a funny old game.

In a very short period of time our two clubs have completely reversed league positions.  While we are striving for at the very least, mid-table respectability in National North, Corby are struggling towards the bottom of a division that counts Wisbech, Soham and Yaxley among it's luminaries.

Such reverses in fortunes are the reason I never get too carried away when we lose or win a couple of game in a row.  Keeping the big-picture in mind may make you look like a miserable scrote but sometimes you have to act this way to protect yourself in the long run!

"....And it's f**king freezing here...."

Rovers Return

Anyone remember where they were on January 4th, 1992? Phil Brown very likely does, and that’s a clue. Exactly three decades ago was arguably our second biggest away FA Cup tie, when 4,000 Poppies marched north to Ewood Park.

Memories of the day? Thirty supporters coaches lined up at the Cattle Market. Up the M6 to tight terraced streets and a crowded pub packed with fellow fans, wondering if this was going to be another Charltonesque day out. Into the ground and the covered Darwen End (much much better than the exposed terrace at Selhurst where we got thoroughly drenched). 

This was Blackburn pre Shearer & Sutton but they already had money behind them and were upwardly mobile.  So Kenny Dalglish, what first attracted you to the millionaire Jack Walker? We were up against a strike partnership of Newell and Speedie.  Newell we could take or leave, Speedie however was just born to be insulted. Well ok then.

As you’d expect, Patgod was on hand to chronicle the day’s events for posterity:

“How can one describe the atmosphere? I believe it was superior to the noise we created at Charlton.  A big match, a good terrace with a low roof, and a few thousand Kettering fans; always perfect ingredients for a boisterous afternoon”.

Er, that was our correspondent Mr Cholmondley-Warner.

We kept the first 45 pretty tight, with the sorely missed Gareth Price looking completely at ease, until Speedie (what a w…) nicked one before HT then it threatened to become a bit of a thumping before Phil Brown smashed in a long range special and the famous “1-4” echoed round the ground.

I seem to remember Dalglish being a bit grudging about our performance afterwards. Fortunately he met his ray of sunshine match in our very own PM and we returned south in high spirits.  

 

Is JC the son of the father?

It was maybe the moment that he debated a little too long with the ref and risked a card, then jogged away with a particular style, bearing no10 on the back of his red shirt that the thought connected…  Is Jordon Crawford a reincarnation of Robbie Cooke?

Could Robbie account for all of his movements in the Danesholme estate in the late 90s?

Are argumentative traits genetic, like pointy features and ball skills?

Does it matter for the purposes of a tenuous link?

There is definitely a similarity in the form of a feisty 5 foot something who scraps for every ball, has an eye for goal and you feel could be gold dust with a bit of coaching and experience.

If you believe in these things, why not.

Yeah you’re right, probably bollocks but a nice thought.

squint and it's him, with a slightly naffer shirt and some extra ink

So, Brackley.....

Covid, weather and interest permitting we will shortly be locking horns with a team that The National League is determined to make us consider to be a "rival."

No matter how well this heavily-funded club does there is simply no way we will ever consider Brackley as more than a village team punching hideously above it's weight.  They are never going to be a force at this level.  Or a genuine rival.  Any club that celebrates being top of the table at Christmas by taking less than 50 fans to Boston for a festive fixture will never be more than a hobby club.

If they eventually get promoted to the National League top division they will be no more than an irritant until they are surely relegated.

So, let's at least give Brackley something to think about as they aim to blow their annual promotion chance yet again.