One Small Leap

This Saturday, weather as always permitting, we will be playing on February the 29^th. By definition not something that happens every year.  In fact, unless my extensive research (10 mins on Google) is mistaken, the first time a Poppy has kicked a ball in anger on this date since 1992. Northwich away. It was a game that had everything. Seven goals, a dramatic turnaround, and (according to one source) a near murder.

There was no hint of the potentially fatal consequences to come when the Travel Club coach pulled up at Rockingham Road to pick up a motley bunch to join those already on board.  As a rule you could gauge the likely entertainment to be had from a quick scan of the faces staring back through the windows. Among the passengers was one Patrick Swift. We’ll return to him later.

At this distance I can’t recall the exact details but the journey north would have included all of the following:

·        a slow crawl, in those pre A14 days, through Harborough and various villages to the M6 at Lutterworth

·        lewd ribaldry from DT on the back seat, sandwiched between whichever of the Inbred Village Idiot Faction (their words, not mine) were along for the ride

·        a 3 hour pub stop at Eccleshall or maybe Knutsford. Or was it Congleton? Magical names on the M6 corridor.

Eventually the bus arrived at the Drill Field, where there was still time for a quick half. Standing by the bar I remember talking with Gareth Price, God rest him. He was sitting this one out, much to our loss. Only a few weeks before he had shown his class at Ewood Park and cemented his place in Patgod’s hall of fame.  However since Blackburn results had fallen off a cliff and Peter Morris, never one to cultivate popularity, was starting to come under pressure, particularly after we were dumped out of the Trophy (a competition we still, comically, every year were aggrieved not to win) at Marine, who at the time were managed by Kenny Dalglish’s window cleaner. Or perhaps had their windows cleaned under the management of Kenny Dalglish.  Anyway, never mind the details we weren't happy.

It proved to be a game of two halves.  The first, good.  Putting their recent wobbles behind them the boys racked up a 3-0 lead. The second, not so good. 3-0 became 3-1 then 3-2 then 3-3 then 3-4. Paddy Swift had seen enough and decided it was time, in those pre-internet days, to provide some supporter feedback in person. Being Paddy, the pitchside wall wasn’t a massive deterrent.  A year or so earlier at Stafford, their keeper had at one point faced the double challenge of us breaking upfield, and Paddy staggering into the box offering to shake his hand. So he had a bit of previous. As we watched on, Paddy approached the dugout and there was some kind of an exchange of views before he was led away. 

Despite the state of the game it seemed quite funny, but we didn’t realise the gravity of the situation. Monday’s ET was headlined, ‘If he had a knife, I could have been dead’. Just to be clear, this wasn’t Paddy describing his encounter with Peter Morris. PM obviously wasn’t amused and you can understand why. But really, would anyone trust Paddy with sharp objects?

It did at least give us something else to talk about on the journey home. Obviously including a 2 hour pub stop to take on fresh water and boost the takings of another Midlands hostelry. The general mood was gloomy about a team on the slide. However, just a short while later a saviour rode into town, called Mark English. We could rejoice.  Our troubles were over!         

   

PM scans the horizon for danger

It's getting boring now.....

It looks like the only sports we'll be writing about for
the forseeable future is PW's blathering on about
square dancing, hog racing, and spitoon shooting
from Nashville.....

We've been here, we've been there, we've been every f**king where!

At times we've all wondered if there are been any positives to from being buffeted around the divisions over the past decade.  It certainly hasn't been good for the blood pressure or a sense of self worth, but there has been one indisputable benefit - the amount of new grounds we have visited.  Sure, most have been poorly appointed little holes that have both depressed us for their basic nature, and depressed us even more because we'd probably swap most of them for Latimer Park!

The past 10 years has been a boon for racking up new places to visit, and then list them on websites such as this one: -

How many Grounds Have You Visited?

Although it is and has always been the policy of PATGOD to publicly frown upon the activities of Groundhoppers, I've become strangely fascinated with seeing just how many grounds I've visited in pursuit of the Poppies.  And no, I haven't bought metal club badges or half and half scarves on my visits....

The above website, Football Ground Map.com shouldn't be much of a surprise to a lot of you, as there are 90 Poppies fans already registered on it.  And some of you have racked up some seriously large numbers of visitations.  You sad, busy bastards!

I thought my current score of 150 grounds visited was pretty impressive, but Poppies fans seem to have a wanderlust that just can't be satisfied.  Somehow I'm in the top 3% of all users on this website, and yet am only just in the top 10% of Poppies fans!

The website makes it really easy to register where you may well have watched your team play.  Pretty much every division is fully listed with every club in each division, along with their current, and former grounds, so you can sometimes tick off 2 or 3 different grounds when playing the same opponents.  Mind you, regular visitors to the Poppies in the past decade will be registering a number of "hits."

I brought my list up to 150 during the recent visit to Altrincham.  I can't believe in all the years of playing against them I'd never made it to Moss Lane, but somehow I hadn't.  I was delighted to tick this stadium off my list.  Somewhat more delighted than the American couple who paid a hefty amount to watch their "beloved" Man City, but, due to a postponement had to settle for Stohrer, O'Connor and Kennedy rather than Aguero, Sterling and Mahrez.....! 

I'm Boooooooooooooooooored!!! Part Two

Back in November we confidently predicted the following Saturday's fixture had no chance of being played due to the weather.  That game somehow ended up being played (I guess Russell Slade wasn't the opposition Manager), although at halftime, trailing 0-3 to Blyth Spartans, few of us wished it had.

The current quagmire of a pitch, allied with the impending arrival of "Storm Dennis" leads us to once again put our meteorological reputation on the line and declare that this Saturday's game will definitely not be played.

So, let's have another look at our options for when the game is called off.....

The Poppies FA Cup Wall of Fame

https://poppiestrust.co.uk/page/fa-cup-wall-fame

They're not going to stop badgering us until they've bled us dry, so we might as well get on with it....!

If anyone has drawn out fixture 664 let me know if you fancy swapping it for a wedge of Desborough FA Cup games?

The Flicks

1917 is still going strong and worth a watch.

Parasite is showing after a bucket-load of Oscars.  It never hurts your cinema-going credibility to see the odd subtitled film.

Avoid - take your pick....everything else looks a pile of cinematic crud

The Legitimate Theatre

The Lighthouse is hosting a Sold Out performance by "Killer Queen", one of the 254 Queen tribute acts that ply their trade nowadays.  All 254 feature a Freddie look-a-like who dresses as he did for ONE Wembley concert back in 1986.  And at £26 per ticket it costs over a tenner more than the actual Wembley ticket I bought back then to see the real group!

Kettering Museum & Art Gallery

The museum / gallery are hosting a collection of contemporary...things.  Don't know what and don't want to.  Museums are supposed to host old stuff.  The clue is in their name!

Further Afield - even more Legitimate Theatre

The Royal and Derngate in Northampton are hosting a grim sounding play called "Alone in Berlin", and a comic who featured in Nish Kumar's hideously woke "comedy" show "The Mash Report."  I can only assume "Alone in Berlin" will supply any laughs that night.

There you go.  Don't blame us if you get bored!  

See you all at Latimer Park!

The media mock The Holy City at their peril!

Without trying to sound like any number of populist politicians looking to blame the media for making them look like the ridiculous figures they actually are, we couldn't let the latest belittling of our home town pass without spitting our dummies out.

In a recent episode of Grantchester (so, judge me) a character simply couldn't believe that a major protagonist in the episode - a promiscuous, murdered fantasist - could have hailed from Kettering.

Why not?  We must produce as many sad, horny inadequates as anywhere else in the country, and we won't be denied the opportunity to be recognised for this fact!

Damn straight he was!
And what of it?

Titan Up!

Normally the fact that this is Superbowl weekend would be a matter of complete indifference to Patgod. In the long history of this fanzine/blog I struggle to recall a single mention of American Football, and if there was I feel certain it would have been purely as a platform to scoff.

So why now? Well I’m still across the pond, I feel the urge to write about something, and from this distance I can’t add much to debate about the state of our pitch. Except it’s obviously terrible.

Winding back a bit, like many of a certain age I was briefly tantalised by this bizarre new sport when it first appeared on UK television screens in the early days of Channel 4. It was brash, it was bright and above all it was the only thing to watch on a Sunday teatime apart from Songs of Praise. Some took their interest further and you may remember the brief heyday of the Northants Stormbringers. For a season they resided at Rockingham Road and I recall wandering up there one Sunday afternoon to see a game, out of a mix of boredom and curiosity. Years later I discovered that Dave Tailby was part of that Stormbringers squad, which means there is a distinct possibility I parted with cash to watch DT perform. In fact I think I can remember him now, the only player who wore a KTFC bobble hat instead of a helmet.

I soon got this ridiculous American pastime out of my system and took no more interest until, quite recently, I found myself in Nashville Tennessee with some time on my hands. As I’ve previously reported, there are two big teams here – the Predators (ice hockey) and the Titans (NFL).  Soon there will be three when the MLS franchise hits the road, but let’s park that for now. So I went to see the Titans when I got the chance. Home for them is the Nissan (NEESARN) Stadium, holds about 68,000, which in local terms makes it a bit of a tiddler. The college team Tennessee State University  pack in up to 107,000.  Yes you read that right.  The sixth biggest stadium in the world, according to my perfunctory googling. To watch a students team. But maybe it says a bit about the absence of alternative forms of entertainment. For example in Tuscaloosa Alabama, pop 50,000, Alabama University draw crowds of 100,000. But what else is there to do in that part of Alabama, except check your gun collection and Trump bumper sticker.  

 

The first thing to know about NFL games is the game may start at say 3pm, but the pre-match eating and drinking gets under way a lot lot earlier. Even the DT era Travel Club were rarely on the piss at 9am, but the tailgate parties are up and running before then. You have to join a waiting list to get a space, it’s like the MCC. Hours before kick off the burgers are a grillin’ and the beers are a clinkin’. So much so that the urinals are overflowin’. When the actual game approaches people leisurely adjourn to the stadium, so slowly that I swear some were still comin’ in when others were a fixin’ to go.

When watching American sport you have to believe it’s tongue in cheek. How else to explain the martial drumbeat as the Titans enter the arena, with only about double the bombast of a typical WWF bout. Or the regular cutaways on the big screen to a guy dressed up like Leonidas in 300.  Titans! Spartans! Vegans!  Whatever unfolds on the field, you are entertained. It may be touchline antics, Kiss-Cam, highlights from elsewhere or video inserts. One of these featured Doug the Pug. Doug Doug Doug the Pug. Apparently the most followed pug in the world on social media.  AND a Nashville resident. Well alright!

The second thing to know about the NFL is be prepared for ridiculous player names. A few personal favourites include Barkevious Mingo, Equanimeous St Brown, Ha Ha Clinton Dix and of course, Hroniss Grasu.  Did their parents do it for a bet?  Plus there’s the uniquely NFL thing of dynastic surnames. The Titans boast not one but two players who have III on their shirts, enough to see off most opposition, but the Houston Texans rolled into town with Will Fuller V. The fifth.  It was hard to come back from that. Nevertheless the Titans made it into post season and then pulled off two away wins in the playoffs to get to the last four.  The local sports radio station filled hundreds of hours with discussion about that.  Whenever I tuned in, a couple of jocks were talking animatedly about the Titans prospects. Six hours later, another couple of jocks were continuing the discussion.  Points were hammered home with statements like, “to win this game, the Titans gotta MOVE the football”.   Sort of akin to Alan Shearer saying, “to win this game, England need to score more goals”. Which in fairness I’m pretty sure is an actual quote.

But the Titans couldn't make it three in a row and were eliminated by the Kansas City Chiefs at the last hurdle  Even a visiting Brit like me felt sad about that. Doug too.  

 

 

So this Sunday it’s Superbowl 54, sorry LIV, the Roman numerals just underlining how historic an event this is. Which in American terms it is. Anything that goes back more than 20 years starts to accrue a heritage status, a bit like Sky's coverage of the Premier League. But so what, when in Rome...  I’ll be watching, if I can’t get Songs of Praise on iPlayer.