Altincham
Gateshead
York City
Boston United
C'mon the 'Heed!
Sunday, 19 July 2020
Good Luck Gateshead!
The long-rumoured Nationwide North play-offs begin today, with Brackley, Chester, Gateshead and Altrincham vying for the right to take on York and Boston, for the further right to play Kings Lynn again next year in front of their dozen travelling thugs.
County loyalties suggest Poppies fans should support Brackley's push for promotion, but I don't want them putting us firmly back into third place in the County pecking order. And I didn't rate them when we played them at their place. At all. And Dan Holman is a scabby Judas.
Old rivalry loyalty should tip us towards backing Alty or Boston, but they are both good, traditional away trips, so no dice there. Already looking forward to going back there next season.
We are exposed to so little culture these days that we can scarcely afford to lose either York or Chester, so they're out.
That leaves entirely unloved Gateshead, where it's too far a trip to be sat in a stand that's too large, watching a game from too far away. F*ck Gateshead, and all the best to them in the play-offs!
County loyalties suggest Poppies fans should support Brackley's push for promotion, but I don't want them putting us firmly back into third place in the County pecking order. And I didn't rate them when we played them at their place. At all. And Dan Holman is a scabby Judas.
Old rivalry loyalty should tip us towards backing Alty or Boston, but they are both good, traditional away trips, so no dice there. Already looking forward to going back there next season.
We are exposed to so little culture these days that we can scarcely afford to lose either York or Chester, so they're out.
That leaves entirely unloved Gateshead, where it's too far a trip to be sat in a stand that's too large, watching a game from too far away. F*ck Gateshead, and all the best to them in the play-offs!
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| Gateshead FC - successfully social distancing for over forty years |
Friday, 17 July 2020
Why doesn't this sit right?
Over the past few days we have seen some recently-released Poppies wash up at various footballing shores. I don't know why, but seeing them holding up other team's scarfs and smiling broadly has made me feel, well, weirdly bereft.
It shouldn't. Having our well regarded players leave us and then see them in another team's livery is part and parcel of football. Whether they come back to haunt us in the strip of our fiercest rivals, or you glimpse their pot-bellied form on the inside page of the ET playing for Bugbrooke Reserves, we have become used to seeing our favourites plying their trade for other pay-masters.
But there's something about Meikle, O'Connor and White grinning happily back at me, knowing they will be playing for someone else, that has hit me harder than it should. I think it could be because each of these players has racked up a serious amount of games for us. How many? Who knows. Does this look like it was written by Paul Cooke?
Along with the large number of appearances there is the sense that they have all been part of our shared struggle to get the Poppies back to somewhere near where we should be in the footballing pyramid. They've been instrumental figures in dragging us up from the level of one man-and-his-dog footie up to having our results ignored by bored ex-pros on the Saturday afternoon TV football shows.
More than ever, the team and fans have been as one for the best part of the last decade. And any player to play for us for more than a couple of seasons these days can seriously become part of the furniture at Latimer Park. And now, three of our own have not only left us, but signed elsewhere. It just hurts in a way I can't quite explain and certainly can't justify.
The fact that O'Connor and Meikle have both signed for the same club will come as no surprise to anyone as they seem inseparable in a hetro life-partner sort of way. I'd be amazed if they weren't officially part of each others "bubble." And they will know pretty much all of their teammates at Tamworth as they played with all of them with us! They have dropped down a level where their impact should be immense again. Good luck to them.
White's signing for Hereford needlessly annoys me though. He wants full time football. Fine. He'll have it, after a fashion at Hereford. I'm not sure where this leaves his off-field businesses, but that's his problem, not mine.
I sense this sideways move may go the same way as Adam Sollitt's departure after he cost us the FA Trophy twenty years ago. With the footballing world his oyster, Adam left us to play very much second fiddle to Lee Harper at Northampton. We saw him a few years later picking the ball out of his net at Gainsborough Trinity, which suggested his conquering of the football world could have gone better?
Paul White will, presumably, start as back-up to Hereford's first choice keeper and be sat on the bench of a team who finished this season barely any higher than we did, despite their pretensions to get back into the Football League (where they've never actually played.)
Ah well. At least none of them signed for AFC Scum. But, given they are losing their best and brightest to St F*cking Ives, it suggests quality and talent aren't exactly feeling the draw to Hayden Road!
It shouldn't. Having our well regarded players leave us and then see them in another team's livery is part and parcel of football. Whether they come back to haunt us in the strip of our fiercest rivals, or you glimpse their pot-bellied form on the inside page of the ET playing for Bugbrooke Reserves, we have become used to seeing our favourites plying their trade for other pay-masters.
But there's something about Meikle, O'Connor and White grinning happily back at me, knowing they will be playing for someone else, that has hit me harder than it should. I think it could be because each of these players has racked up a serious amount of games for us. How many? Who knows. Does this look like it was written by Paul Cooke?
Along with the large number of appearances there is the sense that they have all been part of our shared struggle to get the Poppies back to somewhere near where we should be in the footballing pyramid. They've been instrumental figures in dragging us up from the level of one man-and-his-dog footie up to having our results ignored by bored ex-pros on the Saturday afternoon TV football shows.
More than ever, the team and fans have been as one for the best part of the last decade. And any player to play for us for more than a couple of seasons these days can seriously become part of the furniture at Latimer Park. And now, three of our own have not only left us, but signed elsewhere. It just hurts in a way I can't quite explain and certainly can't justify.
The fact that O'Connor and Meikle have both signed for the same club will come as no surprise to anyone as they seem inseparable in a hetro life-partner sort of way. I'd be amazed if they weren't officially part of each others "bubble." And they will know pretty much all of their teammates at Tamworth as they played with all of them with us! They have dropped down a level where their impact should be immense again. Good luck to them.
 |
| Lindon, say it ain't so...! |
White's signing for Hereford needlessly annoys me though. He wants full time football. Fine. He'll have it, after a fashion at Hereford. I'm not sure where this leaves his off-field businesses, but that's his problem, not mine.
I sense this sideways move may go the same way as Adam Sollitt's departure after he cost us the FA Trophy twenty years ago. With the footballing world his oyster, Adam left us to play very much second fiddle to Lee Harper at Northampton. We saw him a few years later picking the ball out of his net at Gainsborough Trinity, which suggested his conquering of the football world could have gone better?
Paul White will, presumably, start as back-up to Hereford's first choice keeper and be sat on the bench of a team who finished this season barely any higher than we did, despite their pretensions to get back into the Football League (where they've never actually played.)
Ah well. At least none of them signed for AFC Scum. But, given they are losing their best and brightest to St F*cking Ives, it suggests quality and talent aren't exactly feeling the draw to Hayden Road!
Wednesday, 15 July 2020
Last Orders at the Talbot
News that the Talbot is to be turned into
flats is just another statistic in the slow death of Kettering’s pubs, but it
holds special memories for Patgod, for back in our paper days many was the half-baked,
would-be humorous idea that emerged in its cosy interior.
It tended to work like this. I would
loftily decide that we were doing x issues that season, and the next one was in
x weeks. Halfway towards that self imposed deadline, it would dawn on us that
we had precisely 2 pages of written content, not counting a pending account of
a trip to Macclesfield that with a bit of padding could stretch to another 3,
and had zero ideas bubbling under. We
both knew what that meant – it was time to hit the Talbot and not emerge until
we felt less panicky about scraping together another edition.
These brainstorming sessions were usually on
a Saturday night and I suppose the Talbot was first chosen because there was
never any problem getting a quiet table (even then, trade was slow). That and the relatively low risk of casual
violence.
By about the third trip to the bar the
blank sheet on the table would have its first scribblings, and by a weird
process of creativity, the more alcohol was consumed, the funnier our ideas
appeared to be! I know, bizarre.
(Passive smoking about 20 B&H in the
Talbot's fug was another inevitable feature)
By last orders a bunch of topics, often of
very tangential relevance to Kettering or its football club, were agreed upon,
and off we went to turn this comedy gold into base metal.
Around two months later, we reconvened to
do it again!
Here’s to the Talbot, Pedigree at £1.40 a
pint, a shared packet of peanuts and birthplace of numerous borderline libellous
assaults on Rushden & Diamonds.
Ha ha. A typical zinger probably conceived on a Talbot night
Sunday, 12 July 2020
Refresh....Refresh.....Refresh.....Dammit
I've NOT become addicted to Richie's "For What it's Worth" YouTube videos. I haven't started noting in my diary when the next video is due to drop. I'm not fussed either way when Ritchie finally gets off his lazy, Everton-supporting arse and posts his next entry.
No. Not addicted at all.
It just happens to be Sunday evening, his video is at least 24-hours late, and I can't think of anything better to do than impatiently hitting "Refresh" on Ritchie's channel every 5 seconds.....
Nothing....dammit.
But I'm not addicted..... Just to make that clear.
No. Not addicted at all.
It just happens to be Sunday evening, his video is at least 24-hours late, and I can't think of anything better to do than impatiently hitting "Refresh" on Ritchie's channel every 5 seconds.....
Nothing....dammit.
But I'm not addicted..... Just to make that clear.
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