Wanted: someone to end this farce

At Kettering Town we’ve always liked to do things differently. Shirt sponsorship pioneers. Building a stand that ends just past the halfway line. Spotting the management potential of Paul Gascoigne. And now, add to that list, being a club that exists only in name.

If we thought the Bashley game marked some sort of closure we were sadly mistaken. A month later the club drifts on in a peculiar half life and so do we – assuming that if by reading this you still can’t quite let it go.

But for how long? Theoretically there is a game this Saturday against Redditch. No one seriously believes it will happen. We have nowhere to play it, unless Redditch were to offer to host the fixture, and not nearly enough registered players, unless the league sanctions a game of 5 a side.  Though seriously, you wouldn’t put it past them.  They seem to be as reluctant to call time as Imraan is to make a tearful confession that it’s all his fault.  Five postponements and counting – isn’t about time the Pools Panel were called in?

And yet, somehow despite it all we do seem still to possess a first team manager. We know this because once a week, after the latest stay of execution, Alan Doyle delivers another of his dignified interviews along the lines of “no I don’t know what the **** is going on either”.  Fair play to him, he hasn’t given up. Last I saw, he’d put in a seven day approach for a UCL player, who is reluctant to join us.  And not, it goes without saying, because he doesn’t fancy all the extra travelling.

Meanwhile Imraan still talks of his mystery investor, much as Hitler dreamed of ultimate victory as the Russians closed in on the bunker. No one except a few blazers at the Southern League believes there is such a person. Really, Imraan should be told to stop being delusional and stick to his proper job of online gambling.  And even if there is someone stupid enough out there to pump money into arguably a worst business proposition than a Gary Glitter comeback tour, and Alan Doyle can attract people willing to play for nothing and get thumped every week, where will that take us. A homeless band of park pitch footballers, whose sole ambition is to get out of minus points by the end of the season.

It’s not quite the blueprint for glory that was outlined on that fateful night at Wicksteed Park.