That was the season that was

In the end the season finished with a whimper.  Apart from a barely five minute spell after Eddie scored, we didn't really threaten our hosts.  Just for a moment we looked like we might rediscover the attacking verve that has propelled us into the play-off shake-up.  But no.  Dollar-Soaked FC scored a third and that was that.  Of the three money-bloated tiny teams in the division, one won the league and the other two will be playing the play-off final.  All very predictable and horribly dispiriting.  

The whimper-finish to the season was by no means entirely Liam's fault, but in the final analysis he was the person who dictated that during the last month of the season we adopt such a negative method of play.  Wingers were despatched to the substitute bench.  Seven defenders packed the middle of the park and Eddie was given lofted punts to try to feed off.  We definitely adopted a safety first, second and third approach with a view to hopefully pinching something in the last twenty minutes.  It was almost as if the management had forgotten that we had only got as far as the play-offs because we'd put it all out there and gone for it over the second half of the season.  We seemed to have got scared that we'd squander our play-off place if we'd continued to attack the opposition.  A shame as those fans who swelled out gates towards the end of the season saw only subdued April-Poppies and not the swashbuckling March-Poppies who blitzed their way up the league table in the first place.  Are they likely to return in such numbers next season to watch us try to bore our way to the odd win?  Doubtful.

Post season, minds turn to the playing staff and who we'd like to keep.  As much as I'd like to keep a large number of the players I fear another Poppies post-season bloodbath.  With a mixture of ending contracts and disappearing loan players I feel the Poppies team that takes to the baked, cracked Latimer Park pitch this coming August will bear little resemblance to the one that trudged off the field at Bedford.

As for last seasons players, these are my thoughts, and my guesses as to loanees and contracts....

I would gladly keep either of the goalkeepers we had this season.  I assume White was on a year's contract, so he'll be a free agent.  I was never sure of Alexander's status.  It seems he lives in a bit of a twilight area where he's always at the end of a phone to answer our emergency call.

In defence loanees Mensah and Coyle will be heading back to Bedford Town.  I'd have them both back here in a shot should we get the chance.  I assume Peters is on contract for next season - why would he come here so late in the season else?   He looks useful but I need more of a look to come to a firm decision.  Issacson falls into the same category.  I wouldn't be disappointed to see him back, but if we lost him I'd survive.  Andoh went from looking like the weak link in our defence to an occasional world-beater.  Definitely worth another punt.  I'd have no issue with seeing Rowe, one of Liam's early acquisitions, again next season, but, sorry, but Forsyth's tenure must surely be over - he can't really nail a place in either defence or midfield.  And then there's Glennon.  Is he our player or not?  I vote "not."

In midfield Van Lier will be heading back to Inbred Central (aka Kings Lynn).  I'm not sure I'd fight too hard to get him back.  Same with Bitemo returning to Hereford.  I doubt we'll see him again.  Had some good games but if he never pulled on a Poppies shirt again would I lose any sleep?  I'm guessing Fatadjo is at the end if his contact.  Good player and Liam seems to like him.  But is he worth his presumably large wedge.  Don't know?  I'd keep him but somehow doubt we will.  Thanoj is unlikely to return for the new season.  This won't bother many people (particularly my other half) but I often see more in his play than others and has been one of his biggest defenders.  Even so I think his Poppies race is run....Another contract presumably now run it's course is York's.  I love what Wes brings to the team but it's obvious Liam doesn't, so it's farewell to Wes.  Of the two Kai's I can't see Fifield returning.  Skillful as the day is long, but lacking fitness and heart.  Williams has been under-used but I'd like to see him come back as he is the type of direct winger the opposition defenders hate.  Lewis, curiously, faded this season as our results improved.  Back next year?  Not really fussed either way.  Nor is he I suspect.

Upfront I think Jeche is worth persevering with.  He desperately needs more game time but is a handful whenever given the chance.  Panter's retention is the the proverbial "no brainer".  Horrible nasty little shit on the pitch he may be, but he's OUR horrible, nast little shit, and our season would have been a far drabber affair without him.  If Powell can't find his way back from Alvechurch I won't be fussed.  The saving on his wages will be more welcome than him.  Shame really as he was, for a short time, as good as we've had in years.

Let's play a game.  

Players from this Season I wouldn't mind seeing return for 2026-27.

White or Alexander (sorry, really can't split them!)

Andoh / Coyle / Mensah

Fatadjo / York / Williams

Panter / Jeche

Players from this Season that Liam will probably retain for 2026-27.

Panter

Eddie can look forward to single-handedly
carrying the Poppies again in 2026-27

(c) Shorty

Play-Offs Again Ole Ole, indeed.

Well, we did it.  Play-Offs Again Ole Ole, indeed.

Given our previous play-off record I can't say I'm enormously hopeful, but, given how this season was looking to pan out just a couple of months ago, I'm seeing this as a bonus play-off.  A free-hit at promotion.

For months the 4th and 5th spot in the league was being tussled over by the likes of Redditch, Worcester, Needham Market, Quorn and Halesowen.  Even unfancied sides like Stratford and Leiston briefly threw their hats into the ring as the season rushed towards the vinegar stroke.  No one outside of the NN15 postal code area was even considering the run Liam was coaxing out of his charges at Latimer Park.  And yet, here we are.  We overhauled all the clubs in the division except the three cash-soaked minnows who have unashamedly over-spent their way to the summit of the Southern League.

At least 600 of us will be at the game tonight cheering our lads on.  Assuming, of course, we can get into the ground at Real Bedford past their rather lengthy list of checks and other hurdles.  The usual list of banned items was augmented by the curiously vague and utterly open to misuse by their no-doubt barely-trained stewards - "Any item deemed unsafe by Matchday Staff".  And that's if we manage to get past the body search and attention of sniffer dogs (not a joke).

What happens if one of their Matchday Staff takes against non London-overspill accents, singing or the colour red?  NONE of us might get into the game!

The most cursory look at the attendances Real Bedford have managed to "achieve" this season tells you all you need to know about the hobby-nature of this club.  Their two 1000+ attendances were, unsurprisingly against us and Halesowen.  Other than that their next biggest gate was smaller than our smallest gate this season.  At time of writing they are still advertising 200 remaining tickets for tonight - the biggest game in their history.

I appreciate crowds don't really count for much at this level when club owners are prepared to open their chequebooks and that we have no more right to gain promotion just because more people watch us.  But, look at it from the point of view of the National League structure.  They've already had to admit Harborough with their leisure centre facility and 300 fans.  Now they might be letting in another team with the proverbial "rope around the field" and even less fans (they barely scraped 250 half a dozen times during their greatest ever season).  How does it look for a League looking to improve and show how important it is when tiny, cash-bloated non-entities are the new model for success?

Good luck to the team tonight.  Remember, you're not just doing it for yourselves and us, your doing it for all the divisions above us who might have to watch this ridiculous club claw it's way up into the League by dint of bored billionaires playing silly-buggers.

Why can't the Vinklevoss Twins stick to
baseball or basketball or funding nutty-Presidential candidates
like they're supposed to?

The Big One

Latimer Park is truly the only place to be this afternoon.  We've got entertainment laid on.  Live music.  At least half a dozen diverse food outlets around the ground and fanzone.  Even the pizza-truck is making one of it's sporadic appearances.  We've a host of former stars in attendance celebrating 50 years of THAT shirt.  The current crop will also be sporting the Kettering Tyres shirt.  Post match and we'll find out which player who may-or-may-not have the initials "E.P." wins Player of the Season.  There is also going to be a substantial contingent in the ground from Halesowen. creating a good atmosphere.

Oh, and if all of that is not enough, there's also a match which will, more likely than not, decide if we are to compete in the Play-Offs this season.

If all of that is still insufficient to get you off your arse and over to Burton Latimer, I'm not sure anything ever will.  So, if you are venturing over today and it might have been a while since you did it, here are a few pointers to help you enjoy your day.

1. Bring lots of money.  We don't give our beer away you know!
2. Buy lots of Klondike tickets.  I'm due to win today's draw and I fancy banking a big wedge.  After decades of failing to win the weekly draw I have won it once a season for the past 2 seasons.  Today is my last chance to make it 3 seasons in a row, and, providing Ken Samuel doesn't read this and omit my tickets from the draw, I fancy my chances.
3. Don't have a big lunch ahead of time.  A slice of pizza followed by a burger then a jacket potato as a bare minimum seems like the order of the day.  Also, see point (1) again.
4. Don't attempt to buy anything for your car from "Kettering Tyres" as I believe they ceased trading during the disco-era.
5. Stand or sit anywhere you like EXCEPT opposite the 6-yard line at the town end on the dressing room side.  None of you have stood there all season and I'll be mightily miffed to find anyone there today....
6. Hang around post-match to show your appreciation of the players.  The ones that have made it to this stage of the season are a decent, honest lot and deserve our thanks.  And we're still waiting with bated breathe to discover if Brandon Barker will be able to make it.
7. If you're thinking of trying to cause any petty aggro today, don't.  You just look stupid and you scare literally no-one.  
8. Also, and on an associated point, leave the burberry at home.  Again, no-one is impressed or intimidated by you wearing a fabric designed for old ladies at upper-class shooting events.
9. Yes, the pitch still bobbles, particularly as it gets ever-drier.  We know.  You've no need to point it out loudly as though you are the first person to ever notice it.  
10. Don't worry, Bus service No.50 will pick you up outside the ground and deposit your drunk-ass back to Kettering.

So, provided you bring your wallet and your appetite, you don't stand in my spot, or deny me my Klondike win, don't cause aggro, don't bang on about the pitch, and show the players some love, you are more than welcome to join me at the game!

Kettering Town FC 2025-26 Mk2 or even Mk3....

Gotta say, I do miss the good old-fashioned team photograph.
Particularly when the names are cut off at the bottom 
by the photo-mounting and you can spend many happy hours
arguing with your fellows about who is who!

Seven Days and Counting

Who'd have thunk it?  When we were being regularly turned over by the likes of  Bromsgrove, Stamford, Redditch, Spalding, Alvechurch, Harborough and Leiston in the build-up to our enforced damp mid-winter break that we would be in the play-off mix come April?

Over the next week we have three home games, all against play-off rivals.  The finish to the season is truly in our own hands.  The West Midlands triumvirate of Worcester City, F*cking Redditch and Halesowen stand between us and an unlikely late run for the play-offs.  Play-offs we'll lose, naturally.  Personally speaking I can't wait.  Games that MEAN SOMETHING. Prospect of a few big crowds.  Decent away followings.  Plus the usual half dozen angry inbreds from F**king Redditich of course.

Win all three and Liam has performed a bona-fide miracle.  We fall short and, although we'll be disappointed, it's been a great run to have something to play for over the last few weeks of the season.

The only slightly negative feeling niggling away at the back of my mind is this is almost exactly what happened when we were relegated from National North a couple of years ago.  We're still haunted by the run of three home game in a week in the last fortnight of the season against Darlington, Peterborough Sports and Scarborough, where had we squeaked a single win we'd still have been a National North outfit.  For at least another year anyway.

Even knowing this was likely to be the case Lee Glover set out his teams for these three games with nine across the back and a sweeper.  We bored our way to three draws and the rest is history.  Relegated by a single point.  One win from those three games would have lifted us 4 places into almost mid-table respectability.  All water under the Town End corner of Latimer Park now, of course.

Pretty sure Liam won't make the mistake and if we don't make it it won't be for the lack of trying.  Good luck lads.

Go on, Go on, Go on, Go on, Go on, Go on, Go on, Go on, Go on!

We may have given the impression that Patgod takes a dim view of the roughly half a million football content creators currently plying their trade on Youtube.  Is it because as a written "Blog" we see ourselves as somehow a more legitimate outlet for non-league nonsense than just poncing around taking pretty pictures and videos?  

We might have mentioned from time to time our horror anytime "Mullered" is spotted within a mile of wherever we are playing.  Mostly because his attendance usually presages either an under-par Poppies performance, a defeat, and usually both.  But "Mullered" is only one of any number of vloggers filling Youtube with hours of content wrung from most levels of the game, but mainly from non-league football, and mainly from the levels below the National League structure.

But no, despite our oft-grumbling, we mostly enjoy watching all manner of unofficial Poppies related footage of a Saturday night.  Some of the creators come across as quite personable, while others seem to seek to encourage the wearing out of the fast forward button.  Nevertheless, the sometimes crisp, sometimes wobbly footage gathered from the army of amateur and semi-professional filmmakers is the only sight a lot of supporters get to see of their team's away games.  So, it can be very useful.  Even if you are at the filmed games, the videos can show action and goals from different viewpoints.

The missus and I once sat at a hospitality table at Latimer Park with the vlogger Fusion Josh and his mate Ryan and they were good lads.  The video he made at Latimer Park that day is well worth a look. 

Fusion Josh - YouTube

Likewise, GamingBlomp has covered us home and away a few times and his vlogs are very well made.  He even managed to catch the Poppies earlier this season when we played well AND our pitch behaved itself!  And even though he is a Hereford fan he seems sound.  

GamingBlomp - YouTube

Some of  Away Days footballing adventures need to be seen to be believed, while Stuntpegg is equal parts knowingly guileless, easy on the eye and daft as a brush.  

AwayDays - YouTube

StuntPegg - YouTube

The Padded Seat seems to do nothing except get invited to fill their boots with hospitality at every sports ground in the country - nice work if you can get it!  

The Padded Seat - YouTube

The aforementioned Mullererd probably watches the Poppies more times in a season than the average Kettering fan, and must surely commit 90% of his waking hours to travelling to and watching non-league football at all levels.  

Mullered Sports - YouTube

And these guys are only the absolute tip of the vloggosphere iceberg.  Sad perhaps but not as sad as any other number of hobbies that may or may not include a thermos flask, notebook, and train timetable.

You won't need to spend much time trawling the thousands of hours of amateur Youtube footballing footage before two things become startlingly obvious: -

Firstly, the exponential increase of Youtubers, suggests that within 5-years fully 90% of people at games will be there ostensibly to create online content.

Secondly, and this is far, far more apparent watching these videos than it is when attending games, is the amount of times supporters spend shouting "Go On!"  "Go On!"  "Go On!"  "Go On!"  Honestly, it's like it's ALL we ever exclaim!  That and calling the goalie a c**t of course.  In a distant second place of terrace utterances is "Hit it!, but this is often mixed in with the mass of "Go On's!"  Boy, do we not come off well.....

Chuck in a few "Fecks" and "Nuns" and you'd be forgiven for thinking you were watching an old episode of Father Ted.

A Tale of Two Tuesdays

Well, that was fun wasn't it?  Mostly anyway.  While it's always a treat to see your team run riot and give the opposition a thorough pasting, trousers down - six of the best, a curious, unfamiliar feeling stole over me on Tuesday.  Deep down, a part of me started to feel terribly sorry for AFC Sudbury.  They went from a team we had to beat into a bunch of shell-shocked young boys, far from home, dismally trying to get to the end of the game and escape further punishment.  A rare feeling indeed and one I've probably had no more than a handful of times in decades of watching the Poppies.

How different to the events and thoughts from the Tuesday before when we huffed and puffed to zero effect before meekly losing to Alvechurch.  Have consecutive Tuesday night games yielded such wildly different experiences?

Sudbury were utterly bamboozled by our infinite attacking options and possibilities.  Such was our unbridled variety,  at one point in the proceedings Mensah was playing as a tricky winger, twisting this way and that before whipping in a cross....Yet, seven days earlier we did nothing more to Alvechurch than lift EVERY ball over the puffing Panter as we aimed every single attack at the foreheads of the Alvechurch back four.

While I appreciate Alvechurch are a better team than Sudbury, both teams are flailing away in relegation trouble and should equally have been there for the taking.  We didn't trouble the Alvechurch goalkeeper, whereas the Sudbury 'keeper is looking at years of sleepless nights when he recalls his time at Latimer Park.

It's churlish to complain, given the good run we're on, but had we beaten Alvechurch we could now be in the last Play-Off spot.  How mad would that have been given the season we've had?  The Play-Offs aren't beyond us.  Sure, we've got a lot of crunch matches coming up against teams that are also eyeing up the end-of-season-lottery.  The last thing they will want to see is a resurgent Kettering Town gaining rapidly on them.  A Kettering Town gathering momentum and supporters as we make a burst for the tape.

I mean, how are they supposed to know how utterly awful we are in Play-Off situations?

Coyle lines up his 267th corner, and the closest one he took to the actual corner flag....

The Best and the Worst

It’s often said that we have the best fans in the league. Admittedly not by independent pollsters, more usually the club when it’s trying to butter us up into e.g. buying a half season ticket or luring undecideds along to a midweek rearranged fixture, but all the same, said with undoubted sincerity. 

We do have wonderful fans, of the type who will spend many unpaid hours forking and sanding the pitch only for the inspecting referee to make a plop sound when he drops the ball. The type who man the turnstiles, pick litter, sell programmes and tickets, host events or just do the everyday stuff like watching games, buying a pint and keep coming back for more. 

And at our best, such as the big Cup games last season and the playoff semi, we are magnificent and a source of real pride.

But let’s also acknowledge that we have some of the worst. We have the idiotic fringe of boneheads who have imposed segregations on the rest of us by their stupid actions. We have isolated racist clowns who have caused games to be stopped and F.A. reports to be filed because of remarks dredged from the 1970s (and it only takes one). And lately there seems to be a third category, the Burberry boys who mix inability to hold their drink / other intoxicant, possibly powdered, with having absolutely no filter. 

Last week at Stourbridge was a case in point. A pallid draw with zero flashpoints. Nothing there for anyone to get worked up about, except maybe our surrendering the initiative to a very weak home side. Yet the Burberry gang, if able to form a shouted sentence at all usually ended it with c***. The ref obviously copped it, because he was the ref. Their goalie copped it even more, because he was nearby. He did nothing to provoke it and did well not to bite back, especially when the neck veins were bulging at the end. It was shaming and hard to listen to.

Ok, we sometimes get some chat from opposition supporters. Generally 14 year olds playing up for their mates, who can be easily dismissed. Our bunch, looking at them, were supposed adults, some almost middle aged. Who are these people? And what did we do to deserve them? 

There’s obviously no easy answer. They pay their money, they no doubt think they are being passionate, “the best fans in the league”. But is this what we want to tolerate as a whole? Is this the way to attract people who come to non-league football for the supposedly friendly, non-toxic vibe? Do we want our proud name to be tarnished by these chumps? 

We can all do our bit in some small way by calling out bad behaviour, having a quiet word (if influential), if necessary reporting if it gets too obnoxious. Racist chanting used to be normalised, now it’s totally unacceptable and taboo. Can we achieve the same with mindless drunken abuse?