The daffs are out, blossom is
starting to appear and it’s just turned February. At this rate we’ll be
blackberrying in June and collecting conkers in July. It also keeps on raining.
The season we used to call winter is now an extended
wet autumn morphing into an equally wet early spring.
As the club enters its third month in which the only
activity on the Latimer Park pitch has been the futile squelch of the
groundman’s boots, we need to talk again about the options. We really can’t
face a future like this. Just as well we had the foresight to get knocked
out of the cups early.
To turn the surface, which by common consent is the worst
draining slab of clay in the county, into something reliably playable would
cost a fortune. And we’d still be watching our football at a village ground.
What are the options?
Go back to Corby? Twice the
distance for many, and would probably knock a couple of hundred off the average
gate. But playing 3 games a
week when LP finally returns to action will do that anyway. Plus compared to Latimer Park, where on the
colder days you have to wrap up like Captain Scott, Steel Park at least offers some
decent cover and a better view.
Alternatively, a lot closer to home, Rockingham Road sits
there, slowly decaying but a stadium still, not houses. There
are arguments against returning – the cost, the deterioration, the old limitations
– but to me, whatever the negatives there are two very big arguments for:
1. It’s in Kettering.
2. It’s a football ground.
There you have it – no never ending search for a plot of
land that isn’t immediately earmarked for starter homes or another huge warehouse,
no planning battles, no objections from local residents, no site clearance
costs, no 3 year wait for the first ball to be kicked if, and it’s a very big
if, an alternative site was ever ours.
Even with a derelict main stand and temporary dressing
rooms, RR outscores the present alternatives.
Except it’s not for sale. Or apparently not. Or the valuation
is too high. Who knows with the Pickering family, who make North Korea look
open and communicative.
Ultimately, whatever they would like the place to be worth,
the market will decide. While they hold
out for a sum that no one is willing to pay, the site continues to rot and
they don’t receive a penny. And we’re going nowhere on yet another blank
Saturday.
