Judas pen pictures v Brackley

 

"Former Kettering player"

By the end of his time as a player we trust 
more can be said of Tre's footballing career.

But we doubt it.

If it's Boxing Day......

 

Desperately Seeking…………..by Paul Caulfield

 

November 1^st 1975 was a Saturday. I know this because I have the programme from Kettering v Boston United in the FA Cup. It was a 4^th qualifying round tie, and as a 12 year old, I knew little about the competition’s early rounds. This was my first non-League match after early years spent watching Division One football in London. But my memories of the day are still strong for two reasons; a classic match ended 4-3 to the visitors after Kettering had led 2-0, and the programme is now part of my collection; a tangible momento from 45 years ago.

 

I remember the frosty November air, the cigarette smoke, the bell-ringing monk and the frantic atmosphere as the evening drew in and Boston – then Northern Premier League champions – clawed back Kettering’s lead. The visitors’ first goal came from one Howard Wilkinson, and the win earned Boston a home tie with Lincoln City in round one. I was hooked from then on, and saw eight more Kettering games that season – including the fogged off, twice-played Bedford match, and the County Cup ties with Northampton and Corby. I made the mistake of not buying a programme for the Corby game, something I have yet to put right.  

 

It’s the programmes that provide a link with the past, and offer a snapshot of footballing life during Kettering’s centenary season. The previous season’s fourth place (marked in the league table) indicate the Poppies’ ambitions, with the front page slogan; “Follow Kettering Town into the Football League” adding an air of optimism that was not reflected on the pitch. But in late-season, the names  of ‘Dougan’ and Kellock in the appearances column were a sign of better things.

 

They duly arrived the following August as Kettering, under Dougan’s tutelage, reached the third round of the FA Cup, with Oxford United and Tooting overcome before Colchester won at Rockingham Road. Dougan himself scored in the Oxford replay after Geoff Merrick had earned the Poppies a draw in the first game. On December 4^th, a week before the Tooting tie, Chelmsford’s line-up included an ageing Jimmy Greaves, with a rather younger Nigel Spink (“17 year old, joined the club from village side Roxwell”) between the posts. Six years later, as a sub for Aston Villa, he would hold Bayern at bay in Rotterdam.    

 

The Tooting game came amidst a 26 game unbeaten run that took Kettering to the top of the Southern League, with Roy Clayton emerging from the fog to get the vital goal near the end. The programme meanwhile, promoted the derided fashions of the time, with a centre-spread ad for ‘warm winter wear’, including duffle coats, parkas and snorkel parkas (“the heavy duty one”) - yours for just £12.95. In his notes, Dougan claimed that the FA Cup “really starts when the third round draw is made…..that is the incentive that we all need.” On the Fixtures and Facts page, meanwhile, was a warning from Ted Croker of the FA, threatening ground closure if the crowd trouble seen against Oxford was repeated. It wasn’t, as far as we could see; which against Tooting wasn’t very far.  

 

The following Monday, Kettering got the home draw they wanted, but against division four pacesetters Colchester.  The U’s affirmed their status by racing into a 3-0 lead that proved decisive, despite Kellock and Clayton’s  late ripostes. A post-Christmas slump, including two defeats to lowly Margate, cost Kettering the league. By the time Gravesend visited on 23^rd April, the Poppies were third behind Bath City and eventual champions, and Football League members-elect, Wimbledon.

 

I have all the programmes described above, except the aforementioned Corby issue. That game took place on 24^th April 1976 and ended 0-0. but I have no ‘proof’ as I have yet to track the programme down. If I do, I can complete my collection, and get on with my life! So if anyone has a copy, or even a photocopy – yes, I am that desperate – please email me. You would make an ageing ‘anorak’ very happy.  

If you can help, get in touch and we'll see if we can make an old man very happy!

At last, 2020 gives us some good news!

 LADAK CAPTURED!

Apparently he was arrested outside a Travelodge in Milton Keynes.  Probably no more than half a mile from his house.  Way to go with that expert police search.

So, we are paying out on all bets for his capture in Milton Keynes.  Well done to those who correctly anticipated Ladak's complete lack of imagination.

Losing bets include Ladak being blown away in a gun battle with MI5, being hit by a drone strike on the Afghan / Pakistan border, being returned by aliens and turning up as the new Chairman of AFC Rushden & Diamonds.

Just because we love Imraan so much we've
wheeled our cartoonist out after a couple 
of decades of retirement

Next Month's Bet -

Where will George Rolls turn up next, and how many bin bags will he be in?

Video Paused the Radio Star

 We have had to learn many new talents this year such as seeking out hand gel dispensers when entering a shop, remembering to tuck a face mask in your back pocket when leaving home and giving withering looks using just your eyes when someone invades your personal space.  Actually, scratch that last one.  This is a talent I've always had....

 Now, with the advent of our away games being live streamed both visually and aurally, the new ability of synchronising these separate feeds into a single, satisfying entity has become the latest covid-inspired talent the average Poppies fan has had to learn. 

 It's all well and good the opposition club laying on the live footage of our heroes on their patch, but we don't also need to hear their poorly-informed, bumbling, utterly-biased commentary too.  Not when we can hear poorly-informed, bumbling, utterly-biased commentary from OUR commentators via Poppies radio.

 It should be simplicity itself.  Start the TV footage.  Start the Poppies media commentary.  Bob's your uncle.  Alas, Bob's not your uncle.  Not even close.  Just a rather seedy mate of your Father who enjoys rather too much bouncing the ten year-old version of you on his knee....

 No, you need to spend the first five minutes of each half trying to match the visuals with the audio commentary.   Hearing the excited yelps of our commentary duo over footage of a ball being cleaned under Connor's shirt, or seeing the ball hit the back of the net while hearing about the lack of activity on the pitch isn't much fun.  Sometimes the unedited outputs are as much as 30-seconds apart, but with careful pausing and then playing of one of the feeds you can usually get them to correlate them reasonably well.  Sometimes even before York are 2-0 up.

 By the time you are completely happy with what you are watching and hearing it is invariably half-time and you have to go through the entire process again for the second half.  That said, at least this keeps you engaged in the process, not like the boring, old-fashioned standing at the ground and just letting the game unfold in front of you!  Where's the fun in that?

 

The March to the Arch starts here

 Bob Brown mentioned on KTFC Chat the other day that when the Poppies reached the Trophy final in 1979 we started our campaign with a home tie against long time rivals Nuneaton.  Just like this season.

Of course Bob would know this.  This is the sort of fact you would expect to be at the fingertips of someone who has published honest-to-goodness BOOKS about the Poppies.  Not simply tapped a few poorly spelled insults onto an online blog.  Actual BOOKS!

But what Bob with his highfalutin book-smarts didn't notice, and this little old blog did, is that there's an even better connection, which means we are certain to make a return to Wembley this season.

Why?  You are entirely at liberty to ask.  

Think about it.  We reached the final in 1979 and 2000.  

You don't have to pretend to understand "Only Conect" while secretly just gawping at Victoria Coren-Mitchell to figure out the next year in sequence after 1979 and 2000 is 2021.  And with this season (hopefully) getting as far as 2021, surely this is all the proof needed that we are due our "regular" every 21-year visit to the home of English football?

WEMBERLEE!  WEMBERLEE!

Dammit, we're just too late
for the "Twin Towers" reference....

I'm Gonna Miss You

At about half three today I'm really going to miss you.  My feet will be like ice.  My fingers numb.  Nose dripping.  I'll have a fistful of damp, losing Klondike tickets wedged glumly in my pocket.  

My boots will be muddy.  My team will be splashing around aimlessly.  I won't believe how enormous Kyle Perry is in the flesh.

Friends will inadvertently forget social distancing.  Hands will accidentally be shook.  Dave Singh will want a snog.

A handful of brain-dead covid-deniers will cause an unnecessary ruckus and spout some insane conspiracy theories which tie-in stolen American elections, vaccine tracking technology and a random X-Files plot line.  One of them will sneeze down the back of my neck.  Not that I'll notice as I'll have been standing out in a sleety shower since one minutes past three.

And I'll look back fondly on my short stint as an armchair supporter.  Sure, it wasn't all good.  The two dreary mud-soaked defeats to Curzon and Southport.  The despair of Fylde.  The scary decimation at Gloucester.  Becoming uncomfortably familiar with Richard Atkinson's tissue collection as he struggled to keep the rain off of the video camera.

But there was also the encouraging wins against Bradford and Chelmsford.  Shutting up the big-boys of Hereford.  The sweet victory at Kiddy.  Having snacks and drinks on hand in my warm house.  Not having to navigate the Alumasc carpark in the dark.  Yes, I'm gonna miss you, my friend.

Probably until the roar at kick off and I'll forget you ever existed.

Still not warming to the Bulls

A couple of seasons ago a group of us had a great chat with a couple of Hereford fans at their local Wetherspoons.  They were about to be handed the Southern League Trophy (the team, not the fans) having won that league in rapid succession to winning their previous few division.  The Hereford fans we chatted to were pleasant, dedicated, passionate yet still self-effacing in that way only non-league fans can be.  Years before I'd had a chat with a Hereford United fan at Rockingham Road when their previous incarnation had been dumped briefly out of the Football League.  He, too was good company.  Last season I got into a long chat with the guy who ran the (world's smallest) snack bar in the away end at Edgar Street.  Also a top-bloke.

So why is it, when my personal dealings with Hereford-folk has been so positive, that my overriding sense of Hereford FC is "what a bunch of c*nts?"

It's always easy to take against clubs who give off the impression that any division they are playing in is ALWAYS at least one level lower than they should be.  Or clubs that claim the achievements of a previous incarnation which they were happy to rid themselves of when it was expedient.  Or employ Managers, teetering on the brink of the sack who get games called off because they aren't up for the battle.

Or crassly write about upcoming opponents using, without equivocation, phrases like -

"The Poppies are hopeless, and look to be heading back down to the Southern League"

"The Bulls are playing Kettering and should win this encounter"

Over the years Patgod has very occasionally discussed the opposition in less than flattering light.  I know, difficult to believe.  But we like to think that we wrap our barbs in a layer or two of irony or light sarcasm. Perhaps the writers of these lines above might try to flower-up their imagery and still get their point across?

For example, and they can borrow these and insert into the previous articles absolutely free of charge!

"The Poppies have had a bad start to the season, with most of their own fans admitting they've been hopeless so far.  If they don't extract their digits pronto a swift return to the Southern League surely beckons...."

We KNOW we've been hopeless.  We just don't need a smug arsehole telling us.  In the same way we KNOW our town centre is the worst in the UK.  But woe-betide any outsider who has the nerve to tell us the same fact.

Also, feel free to use this correction -

"The Bulls are playing Kettering and should win this encounter.  Because we're so great and they are so rubbish.  Proven by the fact we are a MASSIVE 4-points better off than them and won one whole game more than they have.  Because they're hopeless and we're the greatest team ever.  And we are sure to be back in the Football League any day soon if it wasn't for the fact that (A) we've never actually played in the Football League, and (B) we can't quite seem to stop being lower table National North fodder."

There you go.  All sorted.

Forthcoming Fixtures

Boston (A) – postponed – they’ve got Covid

Blyth (H) - postponed – they might have Covid

Guiseley (H) – postponed – no hand sanitiser in the ref’s changing room

Hereford (A) – postponed - they had it, they feel better but have called it off again because the game still feels a bit too soon

Kidderminster (A) – postponed – the soup tastes like it might have Covid

York (A) – postponed – ground requisitioned as a test centre

Telford (H) – postponed – waterlogged pitch

Brackley (H) – postponed –  during the Telford pitch inspection, to save time

Alfreton (A) – postponed – combination of Covid, frozen pitch and a tummy bug

Brackley (A) – postponed – they’ve fluked their way to the 3^rd Round and prefer to focus on that

Gateshead (H) – postponed – see Telford above

Farsley (A) – postponed - it’s too cold for outdoor games

Darlington (H) - postponed – allergic reaction to vaccine. And the pitch is still a bog. 

Spennymoor (A) – postponed – no one can be arsed any more

That sound you hear? Could be my teeth gnashing......

 I made the mistake of sitting through the seemingly endless FA Cup 1st Round highlights package the other day.  Big mistake.  Rather than my enjoy the ups and downs, the great goals and the great stories three competingly dark thoughts ran around my head.

"How come THEY are in the FA Cup 1st round and we don't get as much as a sniff anymore?"

There are truly some obscure outfits regularly popping up in the First Round nowadays.  Why are Camberwick Green Rovers and Tweedle Dum FC beating Football League teams with gay abandon when we can't get past teams like Sutton Bloody Coldfield, Nant Bloody Wich and Bamber Bloody Bridge?  And there's so many non-league teams in the First and Second Rounds Proper these days.  I'm certain when we used to get so far in the competition there were almost no non-league teams left.  Now they clutter up the fixtures with their battling displays and heart-warming stories.  Yesterday's Second Round draw guarantees at least three non-league teams will still be in the competition when the Big Boys join in.  Obviously Spurs will draw one of them and put thirty goals past them to take our place as all time top scorers.....

Part of me wants to applaud the efforts of fellow non-league teams in getting so far in the FA Cup, but I fear a far more substantial part of me (roughly 99%) wants them all to fail and for us to still be in there, which, had we not lent Brett out in the midst of a contagious pandemic we might still have been.  Still, he got some useful game time....

"Since when did those crappy little teams we used to beat for fun get such fantastic stadiums?"

There are a depressingly large number of clubs that were so far in our rear mirror a decade ago, with dog-rough facilities and a tar-pit for a pitch who seem to be playing matches in brand new stadiums on billiard table flat pitches.  I mean, c'mon!  Isn't it enough we've traded in Rockingham Road for a poorly draining bog in Burton?  Does everyone else really have to choose the exact same moment to open new super-stadia with professionally manicured lawns for pitches?  Talk about taking the piss!

"THEY are a Football League Club?  How the f*ck did that happen?"

I've watched enough of Quest channel on a Saturday night to finally accept that the likes of Morecambe, Stevenage, Crawley, Forest Green, Burton Albion,  Cheltenham, f*cking Barrow and, jeez...."Championship" Wycombe (!) are actual Football League clubs.  Playing in the Football League.  On merit.  Even f*cking Barrow.

But I draw the line at seeing Harrogate listed as one of the "92".  Actually, Harrogate qualify for all three of my desperate questions.  They are in the Cup, they've got a greatly augmented ground AND somehow they're in the Football League!  

When we last played Harrogate at their place, a dozen years ago when we were on our way to the Conference North title, and they were hanging on to a place in that division, plying their trade in their homely stadium.  I recall chatting to an ancient Harrogate supporter who confided to me that (a rather bored) JP Marna was the classiest player he had ever seen...!

Back then we were on the way to Conference National, propelled by the dream team of Imraan's financial acumen and Mark Cooper's all-out-attacking flair, with the Football League our next step whilst Harrogate were looking at the Northern Premier League and fixtures against the likes of Sutton Bloody Coldfield, Nant Bloody Wich and Bamber Bloody Bridge.

Except, it didn't quite work out that way.  But if Harrogate's elevation manages to grind my gears I can only imagine the reaction of York City fans as they slithered down and then out of the Football League, and then slumped out of The National League into the Northern section while the team from the "village" just down the road effectively took their place.  York City fans aren't the most mentally stable at the best of times, so this must have totally blew their angry, entitled minds!

Actually, the thought of York City fans doing their impotent nut at the "unfairness" of Harrogate's success has quite cheered me right up again!  Hooray for Harrogate!

Betty's Cafe - no longer the most famous
place in Harrogate

Perhaps it's the lack of football.....

 .....but when the missus brought this (rather early) chocolate advent calender home today all I could see was an opposition Santa coming at me after scoring a late winner after I'd given him grief for 90 minutes.....

....we need to get back inside Latimer Park sooner rather than later, even if only for my sanity.

The Hunt Is On!

 

Mission (soon to be) accomplished 

What a surprise.  Imraan has failed to give himself up to the authorities.  He always believed himself to be above the usual norms of society and has now declared himself to be beyond the law of the land itself.

He's bound to have several good reasons for taking to his heels, with the old standbys of bullying, racial hatred and religious intolerance very much to the fore.  Poor lamb.

The sooner he's run to ground, incarcerated and roundly buggered by Mr Big in the shower-block  the better.  At least then he'll have an inkling of how we felt with him as our owner.

Imraan, Imraan......

If nothing else, being a convicted crook
obviously doesn't knock the years off....

Scenario One - Imraan is unfairly, and probably racially picked on by a company who rent out temporary
medical personnel.  He's been unlucky to be on the receiving end of other people's duplicity.  Yet again.
Mmmm, I often wonder if he ever got that money from James Cann....?

Scenario Two - He fell foul of his colleagues for being a complete cock, got paid off, and then tried to get further payments by being a cowardly arsehole and playing the race card.  Yet again....

Decide for yourself by clicking here -

Go directly to Jail. Do not collect £200

Just to be clear.....

.....if we EVER see the Poppies f*ck around with
one of these new, w@nky, short-goal kick routines that
serve only to cost you a goal, arses will be kicked.

We don't care who you are, how long you've played for us,
or how big & ugly you are.  Arses will be kicked.

 

Ready or not, here we go!

Flat cap - check
Poppies shirt - check
Scarf - check
Worried expression - check
Errrrr....
Dressing gown - check

Let's do this!

It's Football Jim, but not as we know it

 The Poppies return to competitive football for the first time since a handful of us brave / foolhardy souls watched a not especially competitive game at Bucks Head over 6-months ago.  But what kind of football are we returning to?  

As I type this, I am primed to enter my Bank details onto what looks like a dodgy knock-off Russian website, promising to stream this afternoon's FA Cup game with Chelmsford.  More likely, I fear my Bank Account will either be emptied or used as a tax-haven by a close friend of Vladimir Putin.  Even more likely, looking out of the window, is that the weather will jinx any dastardly Eastern European shenanigans.

While it is considered safe for socially distanced supporters at Steal Park and Nonce Park II to watch their sub-par heroes in the flesh, Poppies fans wanting to assemble at Latimer Park will need to sit inside the social club, or huddle-up under a couple of marquees.  All while the game is taking place, in the fresh, clean, albeit very wet air just metres away.  Even BPW will be able to boast that they have bigger gates than us!

We are going to have a whole generation of players representing us that none of us have ever seen.  More to the point, we'll have a whole raft of footballers wearing Poppies red, who will never have the pleasure of performing under the merciless, withering verbal barrage of our "support".  This is a shame, as spending a slice of a footballing career being on the receiving end of our moaning is often seen as a badge of honour for old pro's, and a bonding experience for them.

So, the National League will (fairly, assuredly) be slicing up a Government grant of £10 million to keep our clubs playing in front of empty stadiums for the next three months.  Hopefully by the time the cash trickles down to our NN backwater we will have sufficient fifty pence pieces to feed the meter to just about afford to keep the showers warm.  At least for the first half dozen players who use them.  We can only hope that this money, plus merchandise sales and funds paid into "TV-footie-ruskie.com" can get us through the foreseeable future.

I'm already looking forward to making virtual payments to a virtual Ken Samuels for virtual Klondike tickets for a virtual draw that I have virtually no chance of winning.  Over to you, Poppies.

Thankfully, it's business as usual at Gateshead

"Getting Shirty" - must be part 30 by now?

 

This follicle-free photograph shows that we have come some distance from the days the club couldn't attract a main sponsor if their lives depended on it.  Personally I'd have liked this guy and Brian Martin to fight it out in the centre circle for the right to put their logo on my chest next season.  Two companies wanted the gig.  A bloody dust-up seems the fairest way to settle matters, but perhaps this is why I don't get to make these sort of decisions.

From all accounts Logistics People are putting forward a sum of money sufficient for BM Pallets to bow out for next season.  That's good for the club.  Good for Logistics People.  Good for all of us baldies.

Not so good for Brian Martin and BM Pallets.  Having been main club sponsors for the past five years Brian has been a great main sponsor - long-time club supporter and owner of a local company.  I really hope that losing the main sponsorship position doesn't mean the end of BM Pallets association with the club.  That would be a real shame.

Surely there can be a place for them on the away kit?  Or on the back of the home shirt?  Or on lots of boards around Latimer Park.  We really hope so as we've grown used to a bit of longevity of personnel on the pitch and behind the scenes.

You can take the boy out of Corby.....

 

Given the worrying uncertainty in the world presently it is wonderfully reassuring to still see Connor in the middle of any on-field Poppies melee!

Bale Strikes Again

 On the day, seven years ago, Gareth Bale signed for Real Madrid for the basic living wage of One Billion Pounds an hour, both us and Hinckley United stood on the precipice of extinction.  Obviously, we were reprieved to fight another day, but Hinckley United were no more.  Between us and Hinckley we owed the money Bale would have earned for a training session.

With terrible, yet predicitable timing, just as Gareth Bale decided to finally get his arse off the substitute bench at the Bernabeu, take a pay cut at Spurs down to £99,999,999 per hour, it's the turn of Macclesfield Town to be wound up.

As far as we're aware Bale isn't directly responsible for every small club that is finished over sums of money he will easily find down the back of his settee with a little rummaging.  But he is certainly the poster boy for much that is wrong with modern football where the sport as a whole prefers to bolster an individual's bank balance ahead of securing the integrity of grassroots football for thousands of people who have no say or power.

This yawn just earned Bale more than you and I will earn this month....

Taking care of their own

 If you live long enough you will see a lot of weird stuff happening in football.  Wimbledon going from playing in the same league as the Poppies to winning the FA Cup.  And then playing the Poppies in the league again. Scotland getting to a World Cup finals.  Arsene Wenger actually seeing one of his players doing something wrong.  You know the kind of thing.

Personally one of the strangest footballing occurrences was the time, twenty plus years ago that Macclesfield Town were promoted as far as Division 3 (League 1) at the same time Manchester City had been relegated into the same division.  For at least one season, The Silkmen provided mighty Manchester City with their local league derby.  Classic!

Of course, within a few seasons the Footballing Gods had woken up and both clubs started heading back from whence they came, but it was amusing while it lasted.  If there's one thing the Footballing Gods, and their earthly authorities believe in is that there is a pecking order in the game, and you'd damn well better know where your place is within it.

Case in point?

Manchester City recently managed to overturn a Champions League ban for having their owners pump excess money into the club.  Of course they were guilty.  Sponsors don't usually pay 100 Billion quid to sponsor every ballboy.  The whole of football knows City spends infinitely more money than it can legitimately generate.  They were found guilty.  And then they got off due to a mixture of technicalities and the best army of lawyers that blood money can afford.  The status quo is restored and Pep can stop blubbing, safe in the knowledge he can f*ck-up next season's Champions League campaign.

Shortly after this happened, with far less media coverage, and after the season had ended, The Football League triggered a suspended points deduction against Macclesfield Town, causing their relegation back to Non-League.  Even though Stevenage were by far the worst football team in the league, they are reprieved, and the Silkmen were dumped back with us footballing non-entities.  No appeal.  No army of expensive lawyers this time.  

Off you pop Silkmen!

An official FL statement at the time read* "Know your place Macclesfield and f*ck off quietly.  Anyway, Stevenage have just built a new stand and it will look jolly nice (if sparsely occupied) on the Football League TV show on Quest TV next season."

As ever, one rule for the rich and another for the poor.

*probably

Head up Gary (Shadab) Stohrer

But your boys took a helluva beating! 

About bloody time!

It does seem to the PATGOD writing duo that we've done a whole lot of heavy lifting over the past four decades covering, at an admirably amateur level, all things Poppies.  We've not quite been entirely on our own.  Others have occasionally felt the urge to record for posterity their thoughts about lack of chips in the stadium, or whether Sam Cartwright could trap, pass, head or even recognise a football.

The right hand side of this page has numerous links to webpages set-up by eager PATGOD-wanabees, all initially fired-up with bubbling enthusiasm and a killer first article, but soon taking years between postings.  

It can be tough coming up with a constant stream of interesting and wittily prepared offerings (as we often prove!) and we applaud anyone who attempts to offer the Poppies-supporting public something new and fresh to read.  Or, now, to listen to.  

That's right.  You can now listen to considered, amusing chat about OUR football club here - 

The Tin Hat Podcast

You are just one "click" away from listening in your own home, or better still, workplace, to the sort of annoyingly young, hip and happening people you wouldn't dream of ever interacting with at Latimer Park or on a faraway northern terrace on a Tuesday night!  

Good luck chaps!

Now we know then

This afternoon Altrincham won away to Boston to earn the second promotion slot to The National League.  Bye bye Alty.

OK, so Gateshead let me down.  Useless plastic Geordies.  Still, I'm not one to hold a grudge, and I've no problem accepting Alty escaping our attention next season.  They've beaten Chester, Boston and York in the play-offs to earn the right to be one of the dozens of teams that hopefully take 6-points off Kings Lynn next season.

I'm already looking forward to seeing Boston's new ground next Christmas.  It's not THAT far out of Boston, but it seemed almost as close to Kettering.  Of course, this is providing the ground has been completed.  And we don't have a second spike.  And fans are allowed into stadiums.  And we're permitted to travel anywhere.

I'm less keen about visiting York's new ground, because, let's be honest, 99% of the attraction of this away fixture is spending time in the City Centre before and after the game, and not travelling miles to an out-of-town plastic ground, from where the mighty Minster is a distant notch on the horizon.

Heading in the opposite direction to Kings Lynn and Altrincham are Chorley and AFC Fylde, who will take their place amongst us National League wanabees.  I don't know how long it's been since we regularly played Chorley, but I can't think of them without the words "80's Conference fodder" following closely behind.  As well as "Coming in your ears....!"

As for Fylde, they seem to be one of these "new money" teams that come from nowhere, burn bright and then sputter out as soon as the owner realises they are wasting both their life and their money  (see - Rushden & Diamonds).  The club are located in what appears to be a populationally-challenged black hole of nothingness (see - Rushden & Diamonds, again).  On paper, it would seem the last place in England you'd decide to create a football club.  (See - Ru- you get the point?)  If nothing else, they are well placed geographically for a post match evening in Blackpool assuming this such a thing still appeals to anyone anymore?

So far, so good....

Chester City
Brackley
Altincham
Gateshead
York City
Boston United

C'mon the 'Heed!

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!

Gateshead FC - successfully social distancing
for over forty years

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.

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!

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

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.

Ritchie's YouTube Channel.....refresh....do'h!

Shock, horror! AFC Scum have a good idea!

Let's not beat about the bush, if there's one thing worse than Rushden & Diamonds FC, it's AFC Rushden & Diamonds, where fans of the former club set up another club and deliberately chose to honour the name of one of the most reprehensible "football clubs" ever spawned.

They could have chose any name for their new club, but decided that a pretend, hobby club that has f*cked-u non-league forever, should be commemorated.  Jeez....

However, this new club have come up with (deep breath...) an idea that looks pretty good.  Particularly if it was done properly by a real club with enough fans to put a proper number of stripes on the shirt.  Have a look here: -

WTF! Signs of intelligence in Rushden?

The idea is that individuals can have their name included within a stripe on their new kit.  Small and compressed, but part of the actual kit.  I don't know if this is a specifically Scum-lite idea, or borrowed from elsewhere, but a good idea is a good idea.  Certainly a better idea than building Non Park on a flood plain on the edge of a village.  Or only mating with immediate relatives.

Obviously it goes without saying that the Scum-lite shirt itself will be shite, and be worn by absolute bell-ends, but the IDEA is not without merit.  Equally obviously, the Direones shirt will be quite easy to print as there are likely to be barely half a dozen different surnames....

Vote early, vote often and vote the right way!

Vote here!

It's the semi-final we've all been waiting for, where the Poppies supporters have the opportunity of placing the 2017/18 white away shirt, in, some might say, its rightful place in tomorrow's final.

PATGOD is obviously scrupulously neutral when it comes to the democratic process.  We would never dream of coming between a Poppies supporter, the ballot box and their conscience.  Such things are as close to sacred that we can comfortably acknowledge in a modern, secular society.

Simply click the link above to register your preference between the two kits on display.

There's a beautiful kit, exquisitely modelled the perfectly proportioned, dusky sex-thimble Dion Kelly-Evans.  A perfect marriage of form and function that clad our wonderfully toned warriors as they rehearsed for the following season's sweeping to the league title.  The team both played and looked fantastic in this expertly fitted garment of shimmering gorgeousness.

The other "option" is a rather ropey FA Trophy losing shirt, snarkily worn by Peter Morris's equally miserable non-love-child, whiny Kings Lynn reject, Brett McNamara.  Not only did this extremely moderate shirt crush our dreams in front of the Twin Towers, it also dragged us to a dispiriting relegation the following season.  By rights any remaining copies of this unlucky, poorly designed and manufactured top should be burnt, and the ashes scattered with holy water and cast to the winds at midnight at an unmarked crossroads on the eve of the feast of St Jacob the Turgid.

But obviously the choice is entirely yours.

Option One

Option Two

Oh how we've missed him

Nice to see Imraan Ladak, just seven short years after almost putting us out of business, emerging from self-publicity exile to aim an opportunistic smear in our direction, whilst modestly portraying himself as a crusader for racial equality.

The first thing to say is that his comment piece for the i newspaper this week contained a lot of statements which no sensible person could object to.  There clearly still is an element of institutional racism in the English game, and no form of racism should be tolerated. The difficulty is that he chooses to illustrate his arguments by citing his time in charge of Kettering.  Almost every sentence makes you groan in disbelief.

“The pairing of a black manager with an Asian club owner meant race was an issue in everything we did”

Really, in whose mind?  Assuming he is referring to that first season under Morell Maison, we were too preoccupied with enjoying a lot of attacking football, funded by a big talking chairman who promised exciting times ahead.  As time went on, based on actual experience we increasingly doubted their competence, but that doesn’t make for a good story. 

“We were constantly told supporters were uneasy (Kettering is 94% white)”

Again, perhaps I had a sheltered existence but I have zero recollection of any unease about skin colour.  If he was to argue that Poppies supporters are fickle, impatient and sometimes a bit dense, he’d have a point, but overwhelmingly bigoted?  Ladak makes Kettering sound like the only thing missing was a burning cross.

“When Morell picked black players, there were whispers of favouritism”

When Morell picked black players, like Abbey, Marna and Howe, there were very frequent goal celebrations.  Sure, there were also some duds among the pearls, but the only suggestions of favouritism I can recall were when Ladak twice brought Maison back to the club after sacking him the first time!

"We worked hard to make football a more inclusive and meritocratic place – not only on the pitch but also in the dugout and the directors box”

That’s football generally not just a small club in Northamptonshire? Obviously Imraan was busy doing a lot more than we realised!  As for us, his hard work in redressing inbuilt discrimination included bringing in as consultant a well known figure after he was sacked by ITV for a racist remark, and making at least 11 managerial appointments of whom 10 were white.  

This self serving guff aside, we’re honest enough to acknowledge that every football crowd sometimes contains the odd idiot who says something stupid - and we’re no different.  When it happens, it’s called out for what it is, not condoned or otherwise excused.  Imraan, if it makes you feel better about your botched ownership to blame others and put yourself on a pedestal, that’s a matter for you, but next time keep it to yourself?

Certainly Worth The Effort

The Summer break from football is always an arid time for Poppies news.  A vacuum invariably filled by our online conspiracy theorist community, who get to hold sway with a collection of outlandish conjectures.  Some end up being true, but more through luck than judgement.  Throw enough rumour and innuendo and eventually you might hit a bullseye.

Mix into this online brew the second group that get more of a hearing when no football is being played - the "I know something you don't, but I can't say anything" brigade.  In many ways these guys are worse than the tinfoil hat wearers.  They post just enough detail to highlight, in their minds, how important they compared to you, because they know something you don't.  As if having the inside track on the comings and goings at a small non-league football club actually matters to anyone.  A player is about to leave.  A player is about to join.  Another player has told you in complete confidence he hasn't been paid since 2012.....yawn.

Given that this year's Summer hiatus started in mid-March and isn't due to end until an undetermined date in the future, we supporters are being left to fester in a quagmire of online rumour-stew far longer than is safe for us!

Enter Ritchie and his latest endeavour, where he puts together a weekly YouTube video showing us what is ACTUALLY happening behind the scenes at the Poppies.  The link is here.

Ritchie's Updates (Turn down the volume for the opening music though...!)

Obviously having updates from the horse's mouth still doesn't quite quell those looking for problems and conspiracies completely.  Nothing would of course.  But as the close season drags on for a second millennia it's great to be kept in the loop with news from our club, and Ritchie should be applauded for this initiative.

If nothing else, it's fun to see, during the Board's online Zoom meetings, how the curtains look in the homes of our betters!  And to realise Dave Mahoney has the same curtain pole as we have!  Not a sentence I ever thought I'd write.

Such openness is still difficult for my generation to grasp.  Like an East German citizen stepping, goggle-eyed through a broken wall into West Berlin us fans from the 1970's / 1980's are more used to Chairmen and Owners treating supporters as a horrid inconvenience.  We weren't necessarily shot at by twitchy border guards, or had our papers checked every time we left our homes, but there was certainly No "look behind (or at) the curtains" for us lot back in the day.

If you're not already watching these videos we heartily suggest giving them a punt.  If only to see which members of the Poppies board have had access to hair cuts at home during the past few months.

Does God Hate Me?

As much as the ongoing pandemic does and should occupy our thoughts at the moment, I'm worried the medical situation is overshadowing the fact that I seem to be being particularly singled out for God's ire.

As has become obvious to you all now, (A) I can't win any of the various Poppies raffles and draws, and (B) I've announced the two best Poppies kits in living memory are the ones shown in the previous article.

Best shirts EVER

So, what's happened now to prove I've been cast aside from the benevolent gaze of the Almighty?

Well, my two favourite Poppies shirts have been drawn to face off against each other in the 1st knock-out stage!  This is a disgrace!  And I sense the cruel hand of Ken Samuels somewhere at the back of this conspiracy.  As usual.

Best home shirt against best away shirt! How could this have happened?

And now my good lady wife scooped one of the wining tickets in the latest Trust 300 Club draw!  Not me.  Her!  This is worse than a complete stranger winning!  The fates passed close to me, and lightly brushed me with good fortune before moving on and smiling munificently on the person immediately next to me! 

Please don't misunderstand me.  I'm not a monster.  I'm moderately happy for her.  I suppose.  She's probably quite deserving.  But not as deserving as me.  Again, this travesty smacks of Samuels....

It looks like I'm going to have to buy EVER MORE 300 Club Tickets for the next draw so that the Trust can buy the Club a glorified sponge for all that rain we no longer get and keep all of my fingers and toes crossed.  Consequently, the next blog may be as difficult to type as it is to read.

Go on, take all my bloody money!

Time to get shirty again

The club are running an amusing Twitter competition where you can vote for old Poppies kits in a knock-out format, so we will end up being left with a definitive "favourite" shirt.

In just the second round, the biggest of big guns has entered the fray.  The 2017-18 away kit.

Best home shirt,
manfully filled by Rene

To my mind the these are the best home and away kits made readily available for the unwashed masses.  By all means, continue to vote in the competition.  Just know, that if you choose any other kits you are simply wrong.  And probably a closet Direones fan to boot....

This home kit has everything, good collar, great design, well proportioned and separate badge / logo sections.  And, most importantly it has a flattering hoop configuration rather than the tubby-inducing stripes.  As amply demonstrated by the equally ample Mr Howe.

But, the best away kit, and to my mind the best shirt we've produced is the drop dead gorgeous 2017-2018 kit, here modelled by spring-heeled dwarf, Dion Kelly-Evans.   The few times this shirt was combined with red shirts and socks was the closest I ever came to coming out of the closet!  Curiously I don't rate the home version of this kit at all.

For my money this is the most damnably sexy shirt in the history of football.  Not that it got any of my money. Along with 90% of our fans I'm far too lardy to successfully wear this most fabulous of tops.

....and the winner is

Lucky Tigers!

As Matt Fisher's stonking volley crashed into their net in the FA Cup replay almost twenty years ago, Hull City fans must have thought things couldn't get any worse. 

Hull City were in middle of an 8-year spell in the basement division of the Football League.  A few seasons earlier only two teams separated them from dropping out of the Football League altogether.  The following season a "hefty" 5-points divided them from playing non-league nobodies like, well, us.

Various blurry Poppies stars celebrate
like it had recently been 1999

A 1st round draw away to Kettering in the 2000-01 season must have seemed if not a poisoned chalice, at least a bad tasting one.  Even though the Poppies weren't going well under Morris's stuttering leadership (and of course, we ended up the season getting relegated for the first time since decimalisation), a trip to Rockingham Road was probably the last thing the suffering Tigers fans wanted.

Coming away with a 0-0 draw must have been something of a relief.  A home game with a struggling non-league side who hadn't won away all season, with an away tie with Bristol City to follow?  Things were looking up for the Tigers, surely?

Well, after 90 minutes of nip and tuck, Hull had been dumped on their arses by The Poppies thanks to a thumping Fisher drive.

Pick that fooker out!!!

Hull picked themselves up for the remainder of the season, before losing in the Play-Off Semi-Final to Leyton Orient.  A couple of seasons later and Hull won back to back promotions and found themselves playing in an new 25,000 seater stadium in the Championship.  Since then they have been in the Premier League for 5-seasons and have never dipped lower than the second tier.

Not bad.  They've done ok for themselves since we knocked them out of the FA Cup.

Certainly better than every other Football League team we've beaten in the FA Cup during the past forty plus years.  Amazingly, Hull City are the ONLY Football League team we've knocked out of the Cup who haven't subsequently been forced to suckle at the flaccid teat of the Non-League game!

Think about it. 

Bristol Rovers
Halifax Town
Maidstone United
Lincoln City
Notts County
Hartlepool United

All slithered out of the Football League after being dumped out of the Cup by little old Kettering.  Maidstone suffering the double blow of going bust and being relegated!  Losing to the Poppies was such a momentous blow to their collective esteem that they didn't feel worthy to continue plying their trade at such an exalted level as the Football League.

Sh*t.  What does that say about us?

We're all armchair supporters now!

Many thanks to all those who have been involved with hosting old Poppies games on Youtube over the past month.  It has been curiously reassuring to sit down at 3.00PM or 7.45 PM to watch a familiarly unfamiliar Kettering match.  Some we'd seen before, some we certainly hadn't, except live on the day, decades ago.  Whether the games had been commentated on by local bumpkins, or played out to a gloriously throaty accompaniment from hundreds of Poppies fans, such as the Cup replay at Lincoln, seeing these games has been great fun.

I found the older games particularly fascinating.  Pitches that would make Russell Slade blub like a 5-year old with a grazed knee.  Red card challenges that barely stirred the referee's attention - Tigger's two delightful two-footed, knee high lunges at Selhurst Park were a particular high point.  Glimpsing familiar faces in the crowd looking, if not exactly young, certainly younger-ish.

What I found especially refreshing about the older games was the freedom with which they were played.  Whether we were playing Blackburn in the Cup or Wycombe in the League the games were played at fantastic clip, and every team was determined to attack at every opportunity.

That teams would seek to score goals may sound obvious - it should be self-evident that teams look to score goals.  How else do you win a football game?  But these games simply sprinted through the action.  Goalkeepers received the ball and didn't fanny around for thirty seconds of time wasting.  No, they either gave it straight to the full-back, or aimed to punt it into the stratosphere.  The job of midfielders was to feed the forwards.  Not indulge in protracted passages of square balls to their fellow midfielders, only broken by passing back to the defenders so they could do the same. 

As much as modern football frowns on direct play in favour of "possession" football, is the spectacle actually improved by watching defensive players basically wank with the ball in their own half until someone gets baffled by a bobble, and the ball is laid back to the keeper for them to finally clear it down the park? 

To my mind the greatest crime against football came about when Premier League supporters, keen to revel in their classy football credentials, started to applaud blindingly obvious, simple square balls.  I am reminded of a pre-season game with Leicester City some twenty-odd years ago, when bog-standard cross-field passes of a quality ever single person in the crowd could achieve were vigorously applauded by supporters of the Foxes. 

"Doug, Doug, Doug the thug."
In his entire career he never knowingly
passed the ball anywhere but forward.

How better to show the non-leaguers that they thoroughly understood how the modern, top-level game was now played?  Why pass the ball forward when a dozen of tippy-tappy square balls between lumpen Matt Elliott and static Steve Walsh PROVED that their team played sexy football rather than the basic fare served up in the lower leagues?

So, what did we end up with?  Goalkeepers who can dribble a ball, but can't catch one.  Moderately gifted defensive players passing to each other for mind-numbingly long periods, to a smattering of knowledgeable, polite applause.  And talented strikers touching the ball half a dozen times in the game.  And we get to pay more for it!  Doesn't sound like a great deal to me....!

(Lock) Down Memory Lane #2

Another nostalgic nugget to savour, this time the celebrations (sorry, celebratations) after Bristol Rovers were sent packing. Once again the Evening Telegraph's finest was despatched into the home dressing room to capture the scene and add to our collection of PG rated Poppies images.

It all looks very jolly, though Ernie at the back is clearly wondering if now is a good time to add some Epsom salts. Meanwhile Shoey is wearing a silly hat, which no doubt even in this moment of triumph managed to bug the hell out of Peter Morris.

Playing It Safe

There’s no denying it, this is a tough time to be a sports fan. Even the dullest edition of Sunday Grandstand back in the old days had nothing on this, because no matter how thin the pickings, there was always something to watch. Even if it was showjumping. It was boring but we knew it would pass, because the next Test started on Thursday, and the new football season was only x weeks away.

Scanning what passes for the sports news each day (ooh look another quiz), you might find yourself drawn to stories about how we will emerge from the lockdown.  Even, maybe, whether sport can take place before then?

With rather too much time on our hands, Patgod has studied the options.  In the process we have, regrettably, ruled out any chance of football returning for a little while yet. But keep your spirits up – it will just make Gary’s opening quip on the next MOTD all the more hilarious. 

Darts

Barry Hearn thought he was on to something with his idea of showing top players competing from home, thumping in maximums in the spare bedroom. The flaky results suggested that not much winnings had been invested in a decent broadband connection. But more than most sports, darts needs atmosphere. Without all the theatrics it’s just two blokes chucking little arrows at a board – or two boards in this case.

Lockdown entertainment factor:  5/10

Tennis

In theory it would work. The players are on opposite sides of the court.  They generally don’t spit, at least not at each other.  Even the umpire is adhering to the 2 metre rule, up on that high chair. But in the absence of any foreign players the standard would be terrible once you got below Britain’s no.2, and by live link and with hours to fill Cliff Richard would still be able to sing. ALL of his back catalogue.

Lockdown entertainment factor:  3/10   

Ruled out on this basis alone

Golf
What could be more socially distanced than two players taking turns to tee off at the 387 yard par 4? In fact make it even safer by insisting one of them is female, so she’s not allowed in the clubhouse afterwards.  They could even carry their own bags. The absence of sycophantic spectators purring over every shot, even a horrible slice that eventually plops into the lake, would be no loss. People would watch it.  I wouldn’t, because I still have some principles.  

Lockdown entertainment factor:  4/10   

Cycling

Although an officially sanctioned way to get our daily hour’s exercise, that’s me or you on a wobbly bike pedalling down a quiet country lane with just the birds for company. The rules of professional cycling require that every competitor bunches up into a little fast moving knot until they all crash apart from one person who is declared the winner then fails a drugs test.  It wouldn’t work.

Lockdown entertainment factor:  2/10    

Motor racing

Hermetically sealed in their little cockpits, drivers could race at no risk of infection. That is, until they need a tyre change, or crash, and other people have to get involved.  The only way round this would be to dramatically shorten the races to say one lap.  Which actually would be an enormous improvement.  

Lockdown entertainment factor:  4/10 

Cricket

With a few modest adjustments this has potential. Stick a bowling machine at one end, ask the fielders to spread out and adapt batting helmets to stuff in a mouth mask. Be prepared, though, for confusion as to whether ‘mmff’ means yes or no when risking a sharp single. Total absence of paying spectators will lend authenticity to county games.

Lockdown entertainment factor:  6/10 

Snooker

A sport that really ought to be cashing in right now.  The players can keep a safe distance (if necessary using the spider bridge) – and the referee already wears gloves!  No need for medics on standby, diverting valuable resource, and without an audience we’d be spared the annoying coughing.  Quarantine off the Crucible and get it on!     

Lockdown entertainment factor:  8/10 

So there you have it – snooker wins by a long pot into the top right hand pocket. If ever a grateful nation needed a neatly dressed young man thoughtfully chalking his tip, it’s now!