Memories Are Made Of This

Coming soon… Poppies v Diamonds, the complete highlights DVD.  Newly extended version.

Sit back, relax and enjoy top action from 20 years of local rivalry! 

You’ll GASP at the memory of the one good thing that Leroy May ever did in a Kettering shirt.

You’ll LAUGH as the Nene Park lights fail, and all the Poppies fans stay behind to sing sh*tty ground.

You’ll SHUDDER as Duane Darby nuts Brett McNamara and cops a lengthy ban.

You’ll WONDER where the next goal is coming from at times.

You’ll CHEER as Vowden & McNamara fire us to our first league victory.

You’ll EVEN make a big deal of Robert Codner scraping us a point.

You’ll PREFER to forget the next ten years or so (NB. Not included in the director’s cut).

You’ll MARVEL at Iyseden Christie’s cool finish, earning him an extra stuffed hog as a win bonus.

You’ll DANCE on Diamonds’ grave… until Ladak had other ideas.

You’ll FREAK OUT as Rhys scores late.

You’ll IDLY CHAT AND RUB ON SUN SCREEN as Poppies stroll to another routine derby success against our local bunnies.

Estimated running time 60 minutes. Or for Rushden viewers, that’s between two marks on the parish sundial.   

Halesowen remembered

Option One - This is a downside of the "Panorama" option on a camera phone when people move (with apologies!)

Option Two - Yet another Diamonds fan wants to jump on the Poppies bandwagon.



You choose....

Selfless Selfies

You can't have glimpsed the various KTFC social media outlets in the past few months without stumbling across dozens of images of a somewhat sternly-confused looking Poppies fan taking random selfies in front of football grounds, turnstiles, or almost entirely blank brick walls.

Richard looking stern at Basford

Unless you've been living under a rock you will know that the angry-looking fellow is Trust Vice-Chair Richard Atkinson.  He is attempting to collect selfie-images from the grounds of every team we have ever played in the FA Cup.  Not for his health, or as part of an especially sad hobby - no, he's doing this for YOU!  Yes, YOU.

Richard scowling at Derby

He is seeking sponsorship to help fund additional terracing and cover so the rest of us can stay dry whilst watching our Championship heroes / relegation haunted losers (delete as appropriate, depending when you read this).  Richard is one of those annoyingly positive people who gets off his arse and does the sort of things we bitch about people not getting off their arses and doing.  Frankly he shows up the rest of us for the lazy, whining, tight-arse moaners we all know we are, but don't like being reminded of.

Richard grizzles at Yaxley

To, in some small way deflect our torporous guilt, we can sponsor Richard so he can continue to scowl into his camera-phone for many more weeks and months as he hunts down the balance of the 100+ stadiums of the 184 in total he seems to have pledged his life to track down and record.

Richard looking pugnacious at St Neots

If for no other reason than to stop the internet filling up with photographs of Richard and his thousand yard stare, you can donate towards the Tin Hat fund through various avenues here: -

Poppies Trust

Selfie Competition

Richard looking justifiably
smug in Irthlingborough

Fruits of success

With the title now sealed we can look forward to three pressure-free games to round things off.  Three games to take a victory lap, see how near we can get to 100 points and how close Marcus can get to beaning someone’s hat off as he does his fruit tossing thing.

First it was bananas then as the season went on and he hit his stride, satsumas were added. The volume of fruit has increased too. It’s now at the stage where the Tin Hat goes home healthier than it arrived.  The question is, though, will small orange citruses be enough at a higher level? Should we bulk up and bring in some tangerines?  Do they even sell tangerines in Blyth?

Add this to the uncertainties we face in 2019/20.

A personal wish list for the remainder of this season:

1. Force the Diamonds to give us a guard of honour next week (best imagined in slow motion, 300-style, with a thumping rock soundtrack.  Poppies!  Hurrggg!!)

2. Put on at least one more performance that shows why we’re champions.

3. Reunite Holman with his mojo, or at the very least let him scuff one in off his arse: whatever it takes.

4. Aaron’s “sore throat” gets a little better so he can give us a song.

5. Stockport go up, sparing us the indignity of hosting them, and all the cruel and distressing things their fans will sing about Latimer Park.

6. Salford City don’t.

If you can keep your head while all about you are losing theirs...

Joyous scenes at Halesowen as Rhys gets the promotion party under way. But wait… one fan doesn’t appear that impressed. He’s wearing a Poppies scarf but that frown of disapproval at such unseemly happiness can only mean one thing.

Barry Frost.
 

There’s a time and a place for these things, he appears to be saying.  And it certainly isn’t before I’ve finished this tray of chips.

Ten Years After

Anyone scrolling to the right and down on our menu page will stumble on the fact that this blog dates back to 2009. April in fact.  Which makes it 10 years old. Wow, already?

Can it really be a decade since, during a humdrum late season game, GL and I were chewing the fat about how the printed fanzine had had its day, and if only there was a way of producing something more immediate than a match report from 4 months ago. Could modern technology assist?  I’d vaguely heard of something called the internet but GL was way ahead of me and had vaguely heard of something called a blog.

Out of nowhere Patgod was reborn as Patgodonline on the world wide web, and a global audience of billions could now, in theory, digest our take on events in and around Kettering Town FC.  With occasional diversions to have a pop at some off topic target deemed to be deserving.     

They say timing is everything, and just as the original hard copy prototype first emerged on the coat tails of a famous FA Cup run, so the electronic version arrived just too late to celebrate a similar journey.

But heady excitement isn't really the natural territory of Patgod. Resigned pessimism is much more our thing. Or perhaps was, because the last decade has been a game of two halves: decline to the brink of extinction, then a slow but steady recovery.  Along the way even we have mellowed a little.  It’s now ok to be annoyed just some of the time, and otherwise enjoy the honest efforts and occasional absurdity of life at this level.

Like everyone who has stuck with the club during some very lean years since 2009, we’ve emerged with a fresh perspective.  Losing a game is disappointing, yes, but we’ve come very close to a lot worse.

That said, we still haven’t forgiven Mickey Nuttell.

We're fresh out of images of that Nuttell so here's another we equally admire.

Well, duh......

Wow.  Didn't see this one coming.  Oh, wait a minute.  Yes we could.  All of us.

AFC Scum-lite admit to rank stupidity

"One ticket or.....er....one ticket and another one...."

Cautiously Reali-Pessi-Optimistic

Alright, so it turns out Alvechurch can play a bit and hadn’t read the script. Events elsewhere mean we still only need a single point from 4 remaining games IF Stourbridge win all theirs (unlikely) including head to heads with the Inbreds and Kings Lynn (make that very unlikely). 

Oh what we would have given, in the Conference nearly men days, for a position even a quarter as good as this.  Remember, the closest we ever came to winning that league was a last day shootout that involved Kidderminster losing, us winning and with a 7 goal swing.

Look away now if you don’t want to see the result.

How to describe how nailed on we are?  Ladbrokes are refusing to take bets (admittedly because they refuse to believe the Southern League Central is an actual league - is it Southern, or Central?  Southern Central, or Central Southern?).  In snooker terms it's just pot the black to win, and it’s in the jaws of the pocket.  We need double top whilst the other player is still stuck on 491.  One to win off 10 overs with 9 wickets standing, and Johnny Vegas coming on to bowl.  

 

We can't blow it now. It's impossible. There's more chance of Jacob Rees Mogg winning Celebrity Fight Club, or an episode of Eastenders not featuring an actor seething through clenched teeth.   

But just in case, isn’t Tom Knowles due a loan move to AFCD?  Followed by Kings Lynn.   

 

Andddd the match



Cautiously Optimistic Once Again

Thanks to our unerring habit of scoring most of our goals after 4.45 on a Saturday afternoon, and Stourbridge's admirable new-found ability to turn wins into draws, and draws into defeats, we rock up at Latimer Park knowing a victory will win us the league.

Wow.  That all turned around quickly, didn't it?

Curiously, looking below us, there are still two teams who mathematically can pip us to the title.  Admittedly, both Stourbridge and Kings Lynn need to win all their remaining games, and we need to lose all of ours, but the fact remains - WE CAN STILL BE CAUGHT!!!

Assuming this calamity can be avoided, the runners and riders for the play-offs seem to have pretty much sorted themselves out.  Also, assuming we do avoid 5-straight defeats (!) the four teams lining up to attempt to throw themselves into the bear-pit of National League North are Stourbridge, Kings Lynn, Stratford and Alvechurch.  Scum-lite, Biggleswade and Coalville are snapping away in case any of the teams above them implode.  Of all these teams it would be nice if Stratford could squeak the promotion with us.  Partly because they've got former Poppies gaffers in charge.  Partly because it's a nice local game, in a season where a few long trips beckon.  But mostly, I'm already trying to spot teams we might actually be able to beat next season!

But, for today - let's quickly put Alvechurch to the sword, have a few drinks and start getting scared about next season!  But most of all, if you're heading up today for the first time this season, I stand near the corner flag at Town end.  I'm not asking for you to come and say hello, I'm warning you not to nick my spot on your once-a-season visit!