Some Comforting Poppies Myths

A recent thread on KTFC Chat about us averaging 2500 gates in the late 1980's set me thinking about this and other Poppies myths that somehow seem to have solidified into Poppies facts over the years.

Yes, towards the end of the 1980's we ended one season with an average home league gate of 2500.  A superb average gate.  No doubt.  But context is everything.  At the start of that season we were averaging about 1100.  It took our best FA Cup run in living memory and getting within a sniff of winning the league to boost the average gate to the fabled 2500.  And we only reached the 2500 average because our last two home game gates swelled up to 4500 when the town woke up to the fact that a promotion-to-the-Football-League party might be in the offing.  I hope I'm not ruining it for anyone when I say that we didn't quite make it....

But, we supporters weren't alone in picking and choosing the facts that made us look good.  I recall hearing Peter Morris on the radio at the time casually talking about our 4000+ gates as if this was entirely usual at Rockingham Road and not some freakish aberration. The implication being that he and his brand of samba-football was bringing out goodly amounts of Kettering folk every week.  Wrong on every count there Pete!

Another cracking Poppies-myth was how many points we were clear at the top of the table back in the day when we won at Boston during another good Morris season.  I've heard otherwise sensible people confidently say we were anywhere between 10 and 20 points clear at the top of the league.  In reality I recall us briefly being 9-points clear of the chasing pack who all had games in hand over us, and that had been clawed back to 6-points before our heads hit the pillow that night, but that doesn't sound as good, does it?

We also liked to believe the squad assembled by Ladak / Cooper to win National North back in 2008/9 was perfectly normal for a club of our stature and fanbase.  We had become so used to being awash in Ladak's (well DRC Locums) cash that it didn't strike us as out of the ordinary that all these League One and League Two standard players were happily setting out their wares at Rockingham Road.  God, we genuinely tried to convince ourselves that our 1200 gates were able to afford the squad we had then.  Even when most of them were back in League One or Two in subsequent seasons we somehow convinced ourselves that they'd wanted to drop to Conference North just to play for us.

We also enjoyed bragging about our away support, which, admittedly, has always been pretty good.  But, how many times have we proudly boasted about taking a 1000 to Boston, or Kidderminster or Barnet?  With no corroboration and no arguments.  Never 900 or 1100.  Always a thousand.  Somehow a couple of supporter coaches and a few dozen cars managed to ferry most of our home attendance to whichever far-flung rival we were playing that week to fill out their stadium with a sea of red.

Another favourite myth I've had to listen to is the one where we won the Conference only to be denied promotion because our ground didn't pass a Football League inspection.  Now, I've heard this from non-Poppies fans who have, forgivably, got us mixed up with Kidderminster (and I seldom put them right...) but have also, amazingly, heard the same tale from a few Poppies fans over the years!

Well, if it makes us feel better....

"It's mine I tell ya!
We won it fair and square!"

Barely suppressed disinterest

 

Supposedly, some Poppies supporters are desperate for this season's fixtures to drop.

Why?

Who cares about the order in which we play the collection of non-entities, wannabies, and nobodies that make up our league (us included before both St Ives fans take umbrage). Is Redditch in September better than Redditch in March?  It's still Redditch.

There's no great coastal trips.  No exciting city trips. No stonking weekends.  No former giants.  No 6-points from York City.

I'll see if I can contain my excitement until the Southern League abacus has worked it's magic....

Update - Pulsating Boxing Day to look forward to with one of Biggleswade's Top three teams.  Oh, and Redditch away is in January.  Still in Redditch mind.

Now, football really IS coming home

Let's not dwell on Sunday's result in Berlin shall we?  It's all too easy to point the finger at the static Kane and equally static Southgate, but this is a Poppies blog so writing about quality footballers is well outside of our comfort zone.  The England international set-up will be going through a hefty transitional phase over the coming weeks and months, giving the football-obsessed nation a chance to go away and catch-up on some of the other things in life such as families and trying to convince bosses they've been unwell for the past month.

So, in every real sense, football WILL be coming home.  Coming home to those of us that watch the game week in and week out.  Those of us that stand out in the freezing February sleet only to see our team succumb to a home defeat in the last minute.  Those of us who take short trips to places like St. Ives only to watch our team grimly hold-on to a mere 6-0 defeat.  Those of us who travel hundreds of miles to see a game only for it to be called off at 2.55PM.

In short, this week, football has been handed back to the few by the many.  The many who are even now packing away their barbeques, and cancelling their daily Ocado order for 24-packs of Corona and San Miguel.  The many who equate football with the summer, copious food, back gardens and think it is normal to commence drinking 8-hours before a game starts.  They assume this is how real football fans watch their football.  All pink-tinged BBQ food and monstrous hangovers.

In reality, supporting real football is more mundane.  For one, you have to pace yourself.  A 9-month football season is the very definition of a marathon over the sprint of a Tournament - a 100 metre sprint for England fans and a 10 metre sprint for our Caledonian cousins.  If you attacked a league season like the Euros you would be in rehab before the first frost threatened a fixture.  

Real football is by no means the booze-fest it appears on the television.  Ten pints in your sunny back garden then snoring your way through the actual game while sprawled in the kids' paddling pool is one thing.  Trying to thread your motor out of the Alumasc carpark with a skinfull is another!  A day-long bevy in The Peacock followed by a heady mixture of vomiting and kebabs is just about survivable.  Whereas finding your car in a Stourbridge back street and negotiating the M6 when alcohol has fogged your brain and vision is not something Patgod would recommend.

So, while England shirts and flags are packed away for the next couple of years and large swathes of our neighbours go back to being barely-armchair fans who don't know the difference between an indirect and direct free kick (er....unlike the rest of us.....) football is coming back home, where it belongs, to the long suffering fans until it's prised out of our grasp again for the next
World Cup.

God knows what they'll look like when we
finally do manage to bring it home.

Reilly? Reilly? Reilly?

News has reached Patgod Towers that Harry Reilly has left us for the semi-permanently flooded plains of Banbury United.  He goes with our best wishes, blah blah.

The news that he has departed Latimer Park wasn't half as shocking as the fact I seem to recall almost nothing about him.  The photograph on Banbury's twitter page of their new acquisition rang no bells whatsoever.  It could have been anyone.  Literally anyone.  Just an anonymous, pallid young man in a Banbury United polo shirt.

Barry Reilly's utter anonymity was compounded further when, chatting with the missus, I mentioned I thought he was a midfielder and was corrected, rather sharply I thought, that he was a fullback.  Oh.  Ok.  Fair enough.

I then suggested Garry Reilly was one of Leese's plethora of moderately talented signings only to be, once again, forcibly corrected.  Apparently he played for us under Glover.  Really?  If you say so.  

Even though I couldn't recall what Larry Reilly looked like, where he played or when he joined us I surely must be able to recall something he actually did in a Poppies shirt.  Other than warming the bench and being used as the least exciting substitute change ever.  But again, zip.  Nada.  Nothing.  How can someone who played for us for at least a year and a half have made no impression whatsoever.  I can recall short-term players of varying ability and presence from the recent and distant past with near perfect clarity and yet can dredge up nothing when it comes to Mary Reilly.

Then, the missus helpfully interjected yet again. in the way they do.  She reminded me of a dumb cross-field pass played across our 18-yard box away to Stratford towards the end of last season.  By a fullback who obviously assumed he was far more talented than he was.. He stupidly gave the ball away in front of our goal and soon we were 1-0 in arrears to the Singh-haters.  Ah, yes, THAT was Terry Reilly.  THAT I do remember.  

Dick.

Good on ya Ally Reilly.
All the best for your spell with the Puritans
creating more unforgettable memories....

The Defence Rests

Thanks to Martin Bellamy for this
image that proves how dated rosettes are
in modern football.

After much investigation this is the freshest, 
newest looking Poppies rosette known
to exist and it still looks like it was
unearthed from an Egyptian Mummy's tomb. 

 

Dressed to Impress

If the recent months of electioneering has taught us nothing else, it has reminded us that even though the average football supporter has long ago given up the humble rosette as a way of showing their colours, politicians certainly haven't.  Oh, we've also had it confirmed that Liz Truss is a classless bag of empty-headed guff that will forever be an embarrassment to her country if not her species.  But this was hardly news to anyone.

The three elements that historically marked out the average footie-fan from the public at large were the wearing of a flat cap, scarf and rosette.  Some might argue that rattles were also a big thing, but I don't think they were as prevalent as the garb previously outlined.  Sure, there were rattles at games, but I can't honestly recall seeing more than a half dozen in nigh on 40 years watching live football.  Like episodes of Fawlty Towers or Bela Lugosi Dracula movies - we recall there being far more than there actually were.  In reality we had a dozen of the former and just 2 of the latter and in one of those movies poor Bela played second (third?) fiddle to Abbot and Costello!

The bottom seemed to fall out of the flat cap market by the mid-1950's when ever more elaborate rock 'n' roll hairstyles needed more air to breathe.  A few of us kept the flame alive thereafter and even though our numbers have been bolstered by a few "Peaky Blinder" wanabees, I fear the flat cap heyday will remain firmly in the past.

Rosettes too seem to have long outstayed their welcome with the average football fan.  When was the last time you wore one?  Or even saw one?  And if it you can recall wearing one, chances are you were busy straightening it out while walking down Wembley Way.  And yet, for the political classes, they are still seen as the cutting edge of haute couture.  But then again, outdated concepts like National Service, DIY dentistry and scurvy were briefly considered desirable in certain, desperate political quarters.

The humble scarf, by contrast, has gone from strength to strength and they are now more popular than ever.  Remember when you were a kid - you had, if you were lucky, a single Poppies scarf.  It may even have been a second-hand one lovingly handed down by a relative who managed to escape supporting the club and handed the responsibility on to you.  

These days you cannot open a cupboard at home without numerous scarves tumbling out.  New ones.  Old ones.  Lucky ones.  Bespoke ones ordered online one night with a few drinks inside you.  Different coloured ones.  Wembley 1979 silk ones.  Winter ones.  Summer ones.  Ones that you've mysteriously "acquired" after a protracted post match drinking session.  That embarrassing half-and-half Leeds one you push right to the back on the wardrobe.  Mmm.  Must have a bit of a tidy out....

Politics aside, with rosette to the fore, if nothing else,
Rosie is a hell of a lot easier on the eye than Phil Hollow-point.