Don't Panic!

 

We've still got 13 players listed on the website.  That's enough for a team, with, obviously Milovanovic and Deacon on the bench.  

A good, strong 4 or 5-man centre back set-up.  Who needs fullbacks after all?

A fairly defensive midfield and a forward line that picks itself.

OK, a bit light on the goalkeeping front, but we are where we are.

We should be OK provided no-one else leaves, we don't pick up any injuries and the opposition are all remarkably shot-shy.

Could be the last report from LIncolnshire for a while as Boston stumble at the last!

 

Eeny meeny minny mo.....

This afternoon we lose either York City or Boston United for at least a season, while they get spanked rigorously in The National League and then come back down.  But, being entirely even-handed and rational Poppies fans, who should we be cheering?  Or rather, booing slightly less?  Let's look at the evidence....

York City shouldn't really be this far down the footballing pyramid.  They are a big club.  We all know this.  If only because large swathes of their support constantly tell us.  But they are at this level.  Yes, it was great fun watching their rather desperate #promotetwo shenanigans.  It was even more enjoyable to do the double over them this season after bossing them off the park repeatedly without success.  But do we want to lose them?  York is a great place to visit.  OK, the ground is now a rugby stadium, miles away from the city, hidden inside a fitness centre, but York is still York.  A great day or weekend away.

Boston too have moved out of town to the back-end of the middle of nowhere, which takes some doing considering the town itself is already in the middle of nowhere.  Like most Poppies fans of a certain vintage I've always liked Boston as a club.  Great Christmas time matches.  Tonking victories.  A thousand fans on their immense town-end terrace.  As similar sized clubs with no other local rivals we gravitated towards one another to become unlikely but reasonably friendly rivals.

If it wasn't for a chubby, hissing, Cox-shaped problem at the heart of the Pilgrims I would definitely be hoping for Boston to gain promotion today.  But like an unpleasant smell, Cox is difficult to ignore.

So, God knows.  As a matter of fact perhaps God DOES know.  Which iconic ecclesiastical building are we willing to lose....?

In Praise of a (Semi) Professional Bench Warmer

Graham James, possibly our most prolific guest writer (admittedly not a large group) looks at the slight Poppies career of Saul Milovanic which might just take longer to read than he spent on the pitch!

When we next get through to a televised FA Cup game they will look back at our history and discover the initial shirt sponsorship and FA Cup goalscoring records. What they might also discover is our recent record-breaking speed in starting rumours and criticism of a manager within 24 hours after the end of a much better than expected season. (oh, just seen that he has left!)

To deflect my disappointment of this I started to look at the player-of-the-season awards. Which must be the only one where there seems to be as many awards as there are who attend. However, my expectations in this ceremony were totally misplaced when I discovered that Saul Milovanovic did not pick up even one award.  

His ‘journey’ started here just before Christmas 2021 when players were coming and going with a mystifying regularity. One new signing by Paul Cox stood out though as we discovered that we were signing a Serbian.  He was given the usual welcome and given the normal platitude of hoping that he has a happy and successful time here and was described as being a good addition to the squad.

I am sure that many of us quickly made our normal searches on the endless statistics- based websites to find out all about him. It was not difficult to see that he had promisingly played for Huddersfield and Norwich under- 23s and we already had some players from similar teams. In fact, he was signed by Norwich as a coach moved there from Huddersfield and recommended him. He was described as a defensive midfielder (apparently) and had played numerous games for Norwich u-23s but without ever making the first team, not even as a late substitute in an early round Carabou Cup game.   

Possibly the only photograph of Saul
in a red top.  Not a Poppies top.  Still....

His er… “career” with Kettering Town Football Club got off to a very slow start with the games both before and after Christmas being called off due to covid in the ranks. He sort of started with us on January 2nd by starting on the bench in the 3-1 win against Brackley (not many teams did that). He did not actually come on but he had the honour of replacing Kyle Perry on the bench. His stuttering beginning continued with the next game also called off. The following game was the reverse fixture at Brackley. 

He made his debut there with him coming on after 62 minutes. I don’t think it is too much of a spoiler to say that this was to be his longest appearance. Looking back, it did not really show that Cox was convinced about him yet. The team still had some players out with covid. We only had 4 substitutes and one of them was Ed Cook who had been called back from his loan at Grantham, because they did not have a game, Sherriff had come on at half time and the other substitute was Davies, a goalkeeper. Not only that but George Cooper, a young centre -half, was selected as a defensive midfielder ahead of Saul. The match report did not mention any contribution by him.

Luke Graham did not use him in his one and only game but then came the arrival of Culverhouse. With him having strong Norwich connections, it is quite likely that he was aware of Saul, or at least knew people who knew him. He did get 15 minutes to impress in Cully’s first game though we were  behind and he was the third substitute used , of the 4 on the bench. Obviously he didn’t impress though as he then started his first run of non-appearances which included games where club stalwarts such as Diakiesse and Joshua were picked ahead of him and O’Connell was brought off the bench instead of him at Telford, despite him being an on loan centre half, with the score at 2-2. The signing of Jack Smith did not help his chances and then some good performances by Calder denied him further opportunities.

He had a cameo appearance of 3 minutes at Spennympoor with us being 2-1 down and the others keeping him company on the bench that day being 2 youth team players and an injured goalkeeper. It was a similar situation the next week at Chester with suspensions, injuries and some players not fully fit but playing. At least he played for 21 minutes, albeit coming on we were 4-0 down.

So the 19^th March was to be the last time we saw him in a Kettering shirt that was not covered by a tracksuit. His total playing time in just 4 games was therefore the grand total of 67 minutes spread over 4 months, always coming on when we were losing and only 15 minutes of them at home. He was not mentioned as making any contribution in the match reports and did not even get on the bench so much towards the end of the season when the injury list shortened.

He must be either the most patient or the most unambitious player we have ever had. I don’t suppose that he will get to see the normal thanks for his contribution and we will only know that he has gone when somebody notices his name appear probably at a Southern League team. If his photo ever comes up in the Poppies quiz in the programme, will anyone ever remember him, even though he was here for half a season?  Let’s just hope he starts the first game next season.

Who's house now?

The news, equal parts disappointing and unsurprising that Culverhouse & his team have called time on their brief Poppies tenure broke this morning.  The Poppies rumour-mill has already spun into overdrive.  Usually this can spit out any number of outlandish theories.  But, this time, I think we all have a fair idea of how the behind-the-scenes conversation between our owner and manager might have gone.

IC:  I want a better pitch

RC:  So do I, but at the moment this is what we have to play on

IC:  I want a bigger budget

RC:  So do I, but at the moment this is what we have to play with

IC:  Well, that's that then......(closes door)

Yes, it's a shame Culverhouse has left because he is a quality manager and those are thin on the ground as we have recently experienced with Nicky Eaden, who, on paper, seemed a great fit.  But did Culverhouse ever really strike you as someone who was here for the long haul?  Didn't you rather get a sense he was merely keeping his hand in until something better came along?  There are a lot of clubs at this level who would love to have him running their team and they would have looked enviously at us when he nailed (temporarily) his colours to the Poppies mast.

My two favourite Culverhouse theories are (A) he is being lined up to replace Cox at Boston as, no matter how well they do this season, Boston would much rather have free-thinking Culverhouse manage them than the rather one-dimensional Cox.  Or (B) it's back to Kings Lynn again for another crazy stint under Mad, Bad Cleeve.

But what if neither of those clubs want him?  Given his reluctance to move too far away from The Wash (perhaps he's an ardent bird watcher) let's hope he doesn't regret chucking the Poppies too soon.  Or perhaps Wisbech have a splendidly flat pitch?  And a newly discovered pot of gold?

"Wanna buy a shirt?"

Decisions, decisions

Bloody well done to both Kidderminster and Chorley for well and truly dropping the ball and allowing Boston and York to reach the play-off semi finals.  They had one job.....

The play-off's now (for the next few hours) look like this: -

Brackley v York

Fylde v Boston

I wouldn't have minded either Kiddy or Chorley going up - Kiddy without their pies is a nothing game.  Chorley?  Never been there, never wanted to.

I've reached the difficult stage of having to chose a promotion candidate from one of four teams that for various reasons I don't want to go up.

 

Obviously we don't want Brackley to get promotion as it puts us firmly back into third place in the County.  No, it's much funnier watching them blow the play-offs EVERY year and listen to Radio Northampton desperately trying to create some sort of rivalry between us and them.

York should stay down to keep their entitled fans in their place.  And York is a great place to visit.  And any team we do the double over shouldn't be good enough to get promoted.

We need Boston to stay with us because games against them still have an old-school flavour.  Forgetting for a moment their manager, we've all enjoyed tussling with Boston for so many years that it would be a shame for it to end.  For a season.

So that leaves Fylde.  Their sense of entitlement eclipses York's.  2022 indeed.  As a club they were screwed the moment Blackpool FC stopped being such a basket case and took all their supporters back.  And their manager (a the time of writing) seems an, interesting character....

So.....I guess Fylde by a short head from Brackley if I was forced to nail my reluctant colours to an equally reluctant mast!  Cox to stay down and be sacked by Boston by November.  We can but hope.

Fylde it is then....I suppose.

We're sure getting value for money from our man over the border!

 

Yet more from our Lincolnshire correspondent

 

Random, I know....

As we head into today's vital fixture it may seem an odd time for such a random thought to occur, but surely when random thoughts strike they need to be aired as soon as possible?  Or they just become "thoughts".  Bear with me.

We had a couple of young mascots at last Monday's final home game with Alfreton, where we'd obviously decided that watering the pitch with only one game to go wasn't economically viable.  The mascots were  introduced over the tannoy.  I wasn't entirely paying attention to their names, genders or schools attended.  But my ear caught that one of the kids gave their favourite players as Mr Kettering Gary Stohrer and the Liverpool star Terence Trent D'arby.  I think the other mascot named their faves as ace net minder Jackson Smith, angry troll Jordan Crawford and Fulhm's 1930's sounding player - Harry Wilson.

This is something we're used to at our level.  Most people have a "big team" who's fortunes we follow with varying degrees of interest.  You can often deduce someone's age by which "big club" they follow.  My second team of choice are the tricky trees of Nottingham Forest, so if you guessed my affinity stemmed from the late 1970's you wouldn't be far off.  Co-Patgodee PW dons the old gold of Wolverhampton Wanderers during his down time, suggesting that even though we attended school together in the 1980's he was in fact born in the 1940's....

By logical extension all Poppies supporting Leicester fans can trace their support back fully 6 years, and we shouldn't have any Tottenham fans in our ranks at all.....

Having finished my fishing trip....back to the thrust of this article.  We are used to world class players, and Harry Wilson, being mentioned in the same breathe as our more modest stars, but does the reverse ever happen?

Has a young mascot being applauded onto the pitch at Old Trafford ever named Ronaldo and Altrincham's John King as their favourite players to a chorus of befuddled confusion?  Not that this would happen of course, as everyone hated John King, but you know what I mean.

Would the mascot at, say, Chelsea be strong-armed into changing Welling's Nigel Ransom for Didier Drogba before their favourite players were announced to a sparsely populated Stamford Bridge?

Part of me would absolutely LOVE this to have happened at some point, if only to jolt top division fans into the uncomfortable realisation that football actually exists outside of the annual borefest of trying to qualify for the laughably named "Champions League".  So, if you are a young mascot, about to run out at a Premier League game today AND reading this (!) do me the most enormous favour and casually drop into your favourite players list Roy Clayton, Brett Solkhon or even Kyle Perry.  Do it.  It'll make you feel better!

"Who the f*ck is Johnny Graham?"

Another glimpse over into Lincolnshire....

 

Paul to start to think about substitutions anytime now......