London Bus Syndrome

Barely hours after we experienced the once-a-generation sight of a Poppies manager doing so well that another club prised him away from our agitated clutches, comes an even rarer Poppies-occurrence.

Another club liked the look of one our players so much they put actual coin of the realm on the table to acquire his services.  Seriously!  We've become so blasé about players coming and going, or leaving after 7-day approaches, that being involved in a bone-fide cash transfer seems like some kind of half-remembered, faintly archaic ceremony.  Like writing with a fountain pen.  Or casting runes.

Genuinely, can anyone recall the last player we sold for money to another club?  Please God, don't tell me it was Andy Hunt?!

We're going to miss Powell for sure.  For every time he held onto the ball too long, or looked a bit stroppy when things went against him he produced far more moments of real quality and penetration.  Such was his skill he has been one of the few players to tame the infamous Latimer Park surface.  The Gold-Standard when it comes to judging a footballer's quality.  His are going to be very big, but also very small boots to fill.

Powell's departure couldn't contrast more starkly with that of his former gaffer.  Cox cunningly wheedled away behind the scenes to sort out the move to Boston with his coaching staff before dropping us like a shitty stick 24 hours before a match.  No goodbye message.  No interview with Jon Dunham.  No "Thank You" for the opportunity of resurrecting his coaching career.  Cox and his cronies did the dirty on us and scuttled across to Lincolnshire like a gang of desperadoes doing a midnight flit.

As far as anyone can tell, Southend approached the club in the correct way about Powell.  The Clubs agreed a fee and Callum took to social media to thank us for his time at the Poppies, even going as far as to be at the Kidderminster game to make the half-time draw.  Disappointing to report that he didn't pick my ticket, but he's hardly alone in this failing....

I think, if we're being honest, we could all see something in Powell which suggested bigger things lay in store for him.  Other than a short stint at Wrexham, prior to joining us he'd done the usual Midlands tour of Rugby, Tamworth, Stourbridge, Stratford etc.  For all I know we've jeered him at every single one of those clubs!  Hopefully his career can only move in a positive direction and soon we might see him over-dribbling on the Football League show and claiming him as one of our "old boys" ahead of the dozens of former loanees we tenuously claim as our own!

I think I've pulled a muscle simply by copying and pasting this image!

In the name of Patgod, go!

Alright, it was just too good an opportunity to miss. Unlike more than a few Poppies strikers over the years, we know an open goal when we see it.

Is a Kettering Town fan site an appropriate forum for political comment?  Well it never stopped us in our firebrand younger days, when many an issue of the paper ancestor of this blog was sprinkled with opinions not shared by all of the readership.  Certainly judging by the continuing re-election of Roger Freeman MP.

Possibly we misjudged our influence on the wider electorate.  Much more likely we knew it was zero but still enjoyed sounding off on the only platform readily available. 

These days of course we are much less likely to inflict our views on you, no matter how exercised we get about parking access to the local garden centre. But something that still has the capacity to boil our p*ss is the spectacle of a former comedy news quiz clown who is a byword for dishonesty trying to blag his way out of Downing St revelry while the rest of us were dutifully following the rules no matter how personally inconvenient or painful.

If you’ve ever seen the film Downfall, remember the party scene towards the end. Boris was there, but only for 25 minutes.

It's my party and I'll lie if I want to

Boston United fans - contain yourselves.....

 

I couldn't quite resist tuning into Coxy's thrillingly entertaining "Hello" to his new supporters.  Other than the nugget of information about the long gestation period of his treacherous move to Boston, the rest of the interview couldn't have been grimly duller.

Back when he talked about the Poppies I hadn't realised how much he boringly repeated himself.  Over and over.  Now I do.

Nor had I fully appreciated how he always wore the distinctly harassed look of a vigorously slapped arse.  Now I do.

We'll miss you!

Snake. Judas. ****. Just some of the messages on Paul Cox’s leaving card. Such spite to a departing manager is rare for even the most vitriolic among us. Which is to say most of us, but it’s easy to understand why.  Managers generally leave this club for one of these reasons;

1. bad results / bust up with the chairman / something a bit dodgy going on

2. a bigger club comes in

The first column is heavily stacked and usually means goodbye at our level.  In the second: Atkinson, Jones, Buckley, Cooper…  We could handle all of those because they were trading up to obviously bigger clubs, and carried with them a bit of hope that their Poppies association would give us something of a warm glow if they went on to greater things. I for one am thrilled whenever Barrow earn so much as a point with MC at the wheel.

No League club was going to come in for Cox, not even Newcastle United, but we could have accepted a National League outfit deciding he was their man, maybe Notts County if they wanted someone with affordable travelling expenses and good contacts with conspicuously overweight target men.

Boston?  Good luck with the airport bookshelf management speak and trying to unlock the “potential” of a club that has already had decades of the advantage of a superb ground and has achieved zilch apart from a single fraudulent promotion that didn’t end well.     

Still, as we said in the card, don’t be a stranger you slithering money-grabbing ****!  

  

No messing around!

 

Call me old-fashioned but what
was wrong with new Gaffers
holding a scarf above their heads?

Paul Cox and the six stages of grief

 (1) DENIAL

"Cox has quit?  No! You're kidding me?  What a f**king prick!"

(2) ANGER

"Cox - what a f**king prick!"

(3) BARGAINING

"Couldn't we talk him around with a few extra bob?  The money-grabbing f**king prick!"

(4) DEPRESSION

"Well, that's all our good players heading to Boston with that f**king prick"

(5) ACCEPTANCE

"He was always going to leave when the right offer from the right club came in.  It goes to show how shite Telford are...

Looks like we'll have to replace the f**king prick"

(6) HOPE

"I wonder if he'll insist on taking Isaac Stones with him as he rates him so highly?  F**king non-footballer spotting prick!"

You can leave the coat.
Perhaps one of us will grow into it...

There but for the grace of God WAS us!

If a week is a long time in politics, seven years is an eternity in football.  This is nowhere better highlighted than by looking at what has happened to the Poppies and Corby Town over the past one and three quarter World Cups.  

Not so long ago I recall basking in the sun, watching the Poppies team jog heavily around the pitch at Chalfont St Peter in the last game of a season where we were playing just one step up from the UCL League.  While we went through our lazy paces, having won the league a few weeks earlier by being thumped by Rugby Town, Corby Town were celebrating after succeeding in a "Winner Takes All" match with Poole Town for a place in National League North.

We had bumped along at the lowest Southern League level for a couple of seasons after being in free-fall for a couple of seasons before that.  Well, that's if "free-fall" adequately covers being relegated four divisions in just three seasons....

From the environs of sunny Mill Meadow Stadium that April afternoon you couldn't foresee a time when we were likely to ever be on an even keel with the Steelmen let alone overhaul them.  They were looking forward to games against former League giants like Stockport and future League giants like Harrogate.  And perennial middling water-treaders like Boston of course.  We were hopeful of at least give a game to the likes of Paulton Rovers and Kings Langley.

But, as you may well have heard, football is a funny old game.

In a very short period of time our two clubs have completely reversed league positions.  While we are striving for at the very least, mid-table respectability in National North, Corby are struggling towards the bottom of a division that counts Wisbech, Soham and Yaxley among it's luminaries.

Such reverses in fortunes are the reason I never get too carried away when we lose or win a couple of game in a row.  Keeping the big-picture in mind may make you look like a miserable scrote but sometimes you have to act this way to protect yourself in the long run!

"....And it's f**king freezing here...."

Rovers Return

Anyone remember where they were on January 4th, 1992? Phil Brown very likely does, and that’s a clue. Exactly three decades ago was arguably our second biggest away FA Cup tie, when 4,000 Poppies marched north to Ewood Park.

Memories of the day? Thirty supporters coaches lined up at the Cattle Market. Up the M6 to tight terraced streets and a crowded pub packed with fellow fans, wondering if this was going to be another Charltonesque day out. Into the ground and the covered Darwen End (much much better than the exposed terrace at Selhurst where we got thoroughly drenched). 

This was Blackburn pre Shearer & Sutton but they already had money behind them and were upwardly mobile.  So Kenny Dalglish, what first attracted you to the millionaire Jack Walker? We were up against a strike partnership of Newell and Speedie.  Newell we could take or leave, Speedie however was just born to be insulted. Well ok then.

As you’d expect, Patgod was on hand to chronicle the day’s events for posterity:

“How can one describe the atmosphere? I believe it was superior to the noise we created at Charlton.  A big match, a good terrace with a low roof, and a few thousand Kettering fans; always perfect ingredients for a boisterous afternoon”.

Er, that was our correspondent Mr Cholmondley-Warner.

We kept the first 45 pretty tight, with the sorely missed Gareth Price looking completely at ease, until Speedie (what a w…) nicked one before HT then it threatened to become a bit of a thumping before Phil Brown smashed in a long range special and the famous “1-4” echoed round the ground.

I seem to remember Dalglish being a bit grudging about our performance afterwards. Fortunately he met his ray of sunshine match in our very own PM and we returned south in high spirits.  

 

Is JC the son of the father?

It was maybe the moment that he debated a little too long with the ref and risked a card, then jogged away with a particular style, bearing no10 on the back of his red shirt that the thought connected…  Is Jordon Crawford a reincarnation of Robbie Cooke?

Could Robbie account for all of his movements in the Danesholme estate in the late 90s?

Are argumentative traits genetic, like pointy features and ball skills?

Does it matter for the purposes of a tenuous link?

There is definitely a similarity in the form of a feisty 5 foot something who scraps for every ball, has an eye for goal and you feel could be gold dust with a bit of coaching and experience.

If you believe in these things, why not.

Yeah you’re right, probably bollocks but a nice thought.

squint and it's him, with a slightly naffer shirt and some extra ink