Long defunct Poppies fanzine mysteriously on sale again now!

PATGOD 150 will be available on New Year's Day from various outlets around Latimer Park (and likely to remain so far into the future).  Or, without leaving the familiar surroundings of your empty-beer-bottle festooned, fetid Yuletide domicile, online here - 

Buy your Anniversary Patgod here!

Inside the cover you will thrill to -

• New articles about players you will need to be in your late-forties to even dimly recall
• Reprints of cartoons that weren't that funny the first time around
• New articles about managers you will need to be in your late-forties to even dimly recall
• Memories of when the Poppies bestrode non-league football like an angry Tyrannosaurus Rex
• New articles about chairmen you will need to be in your late-forties to even dimly recall

So, if the game against Peterborough Sports isn't holding your full attention*, dig out your copy of the 150th Anniversary special and lose yourself in better days when a crap season meant finishing 5th in the Conference National.  Times when we had rivals that were a genuine threat to our very existence, and not just dreamt up by the Nationwide North fixture compiler and the local newspaper.  A period when a thousand Poppies fans travelling to an away game happened far more times than the same number turn up for home games nowadays.  A time when we kidded ourselves that League Football was within our grasp.

*difficult to believe, but perhaps you aren't warming to the Sport's version of all-out-war, thinly disguised as association football, seeing their players bite at every comment made from the sidelines or enjoying watching Connor Kennedy sadly having a mental breakdown in front of you.

Plan B for New Years Day from Sport's boss James Dean....

 

".....OK chaps, Boxing Day didn't go as well as we'd
hoped,  On New Years Day I want you to stop  
pussyfooting around, release the beast and 
f**king well get stuck into Kettering!"

Peterborough Sports - if it squeaks like a mouse, and eats cheese like a mouse.....

 Turbines take to the Big Time Like Bricks to Water

How close to kick off time do you reckon
I can leave it to change everything again....?

Never Say Never Again

Almost 25 years ago Messrs Wilson & Lewis stood forlornly outside Rockingham Road hawking the last few issues of the last Patgod fanzine they ever produced.  "Never Again" we declared as we adjourned to the Social Club and proceeded to drink the profits bundled the takings together to hand over to the club.

And we've been as good as our word.  Until now.  We were contacted by Ritchie during the close-season to see if we wouldn't mind producing a one-off Patgod as part of the 150th Anniversary of the Club.  All we had to do was prepare the copy and "his people" would take care of the rest.  Well, this plan didn't survive once we submitted tons of material to Ritchie's printer who threw a paddy.  Nor did the next plan of Shorty taking the bull by the horns and getting the damn thing sorted for us.  When he dramatically flounced away from the club like an entitled contestant on Strictly (only joking Shorty!) we thought our chances of preparing a 150 Anniversary Special had flounced off with him.

Eventually we thought, why don't we do it ourselves?  And before you could say, "Hey, gang, why don't we throw some bean-bags on the floor and have the concert here....?" we'd bloody well knocked the thing into some sort of shape.  Thanks then to a local company called, and I kid you not, "Poppy Print" we now have the shit loads of Anniversary Patgods awaiting either sale of being used to insulate my loft.

We're not entirely sure how to sell them though.  Even though it's been fully 25 years since we stood in front of you lot desperately offering our wares, it still seems only like yesterday and the constant rejection still burns.  That, and we don't have a big bag of 50p's.

There's a chance we MIGHT have some with us for the away game at Peterborough Sports, if only to further wind-up the easiest to wind-up people in the world.  We'll probably ask Gary Graham if he wouldn't mind stocking some in the bar.  I may even see if Ken Samuel wouldn't mind selling them alongside the programmes and his crooked Klondike tickets?  I think he should.  He definitely owes me...

Coming Soon to a Skip Near you!

Oh, THAT'S the point of Peterborough Sports!

Many years ago I recall Brian Talbot being interviewed by the local press when the hack made the mistake of mentioning the budget Mr Talbot had at his disposal.  Brian took great umbrage at the suggestion that a contributory factor to The Direones success could be the amount of money they threw around.  He became touchy and hostile and started lashing out with lies and guesswork in a most Trumpian manner.  And his first lie was that the Poppies playing budget was not just higher than his, but FAR higher.

This amused me at the time, given the gulf in quality between the two teams.  The interviewer hadn't mentioned the Poppies, but Brian's complete defensiveness about the absolute sacks of gold he had been handed to buy the League was frankly embarrassing.  No Manager or Club enjoys the assertion that success has been "bought".  It undermines their triumph and suggests their own talents weren't quite enough.

Most of us must have been acutely aware of Imraan's buying power when he pretty much assembled a League 2 team to win Conference North for us.  But that didn't stop elements of our support from believing a club that could barely muster four figure gates could somehow generate the funds to employ players of the calibre of Harper, Exodus, Marna, Seddon, Wrack, Boucard, Westcarr, Potter, Elding and Branston.  Mad, mad days.

We've all experienced something of a flashback with the reaction of the assembled masses of Peterborough Sports to our previous article about our forthcoming match.  The knee-jerk angry response to a perceived slight has been in parts amusing and frustrating.  Amusing because it's always fun to see knickers getting in a twist, but also frustrating because in their spittle-drenched fury to lash out at any criticism of their club they had failed to spot the self-depreciating undertow to the article.

Us, watching the Google Analytics View Count
at Patgod Towers yesterday

Rarely do we criticise another club without making a sly jibe at ourselves, and the previous article was no exception.  In the relatively short reading time we managed to suggest they were were likely to defeat us not just once but twice!  We also mentioned the ease with which they plucked away some of our best players.  And then we highlighted our personal laziness by bemoaning having to get off our arses to buy tickets.  All of which, seemingly went straight over the heads of the thin-skinned Sports fans determined to take great offence that a football fanzine might dare take aim at their club.  The very idea!

If as many turn up for the Boxing Day fixture as read the article a sell-out is on the cards.  Thanks for the boost in readership!  So, it does appear there might be a point to Peterborough Sports after all.

What is the Point of Peterborough Sports?

I don't know what annoys me most about the forthcoming away fixture at Peterborough Sports.  

Is it the fact that, odds are, they'll give us a thumping?  

Is it the fact that this pipsqueak of a nothing club is the latest bankrolled hobby-team for us to come up against?

Perhaps it is the fact they are doing "work" at the ground during the Festive period which restricts the stadium capacity to 20?

Maybe it was the way they easily tempted away a couple of our best players during pre-season? 

Micky Mouse Rudeboys

Or is the plastic nature of a club where they crowdfund buying flags, and then only make the total because the club stepped in and paid the large balance they couldn't raise?  Tinpot.

But, on balance, as of today, the most annoying feature of this shoddy excuse for a club is NOT that they've only allocated us 250 tickets for the game at their place, it's the fact they've PRINTED these off and we have to make an extra effort to get over to Latimer Park and PHYSICALLY purchase them....Jeez, hasn't the 21st Century reached their corner of Cambridgeshire yet?

We have become so used to downloading tickets purchased online, or live-streaming footage that the idea of making an effort to get out of our armchairs and queue for tickets seems practically Dickensian.  You queue for FA Trophy Semi-Final tickets at Telford.  You queue to purchase tickets for Fulham or Leeds in the FA Cup.  You shouldn't have to queue to get tickets to watch Peterborough - fu**ing Sports beat us up with their collection of hard-faced mercenaries.

That said, for the first time in decades I feel I'm getting something from having a Season Ticket!  Queue starts behind me, peasants!

'kin hell!

 Pointlessly rearranged Friday night kick-off all the way to Darlington

Temperature heading down to freezing

Poppies on a 275 away game losing streak

.....then the floodlights fail, pushing back kick-off.

Good luck everyone.  We're all counting on you!