Carpe Diem Me Duck

It's impossible to look at the photo now adorning the top of the blog without feeling a shiver of nostalgia for that sunny Sunday morning when we packed the stand to cheer out the Southern League champions one by one. Even Steve Wilkinson, whose contribution had largely entailed making sure there was always a nice warm spot on the bench for a newly substituted player.

And the loudest cheers of all were reserved for the gangling lump at the back, clad for no apparent reason in a sheet - Steve (OOOH AAGH) Lenagh, OOOH being the excited gasp as he lined up a shot and AAGH! what normally happened next. But this uncoordinated beanpole will always be a hero because he chose the crunch end of the season to stop being shit just briefly, during which he fired in a couple of crucial goals that probably even he still can't believe.

This is the thing - some players run up and down the Rockingham Road pitch for several seasons, putting in doughty service and making the no.3 shirt their own, but make no lasting impression. Others, sometimes just passing through, grab the moment and become immortal. Is it really over 20 years now since Jackie Gallagher? I can still taste the tension in that Easter match with Kiddy in the title run-in, when we trailed 1-0 for almost the entire game until Jackie got some part of his vast anatomy on a cross and then moments later we were ahead, with over 4,000 going mental. By the time Jackie added to his tally at Sutton on the Monday, he was up there in Poppies folklore and shuffled off into the sunset. Where is Jackie now I wonder? I thought I saw him floating in the sky last summer with a basket underneath, but may have been mistaken.

And then there was Paul Bastock. In many people's eyes this equally gormless cousin of Eddie the Eagle was an unsatisfactory deputy for Shoemake, brought in whenever Morris decided to drop Shoey for being cheerful or popular or something. But then he became the man who shut out Wycombe in a big Cup game at Adams Park and was suddenly loved, even when he later popped up between the Boston sticks.

If the key to immortality is doing something really good in a game that really matters then look no further than Brett McNamara. Never mind his fitful form and regular petulance during Morris's second spell, he is the man who scored the goal that beat Diamonds, which at a stroke made sure he ended his Poppies career still in credit.

So come on Dance or Appiah or whatever currently unsigned combination is our cutting edge in the return match next month, seize the day and we'll love you for ever more. In the biblical sense if necessary.

Rushden's Royal Connection

"Owing to the incestuous tendencies of his ancestors (including his parents, who were brother and sister), he was burdened with a club foot, cleft palate, and curvature of the spine - not to mention avasular bone necrosis in one foot"

Whilst the above description accurately describes almost the entire Diamonds home support, these words were actually used to outline the defects suffered by the boy-King, Tutankhamun in the February 2010 edition of the Journal of the American Medical Association.

Perhaps in future we should bear in mind Rushden's obvious royal lineage, and perhaps temper our scathing criticism of our betters?

Boys in Blue Coin It Again

Even though there has never been any violence between us and the Scum, and even though the game isn't actually in Kettering, it was good to see that the local Plod are still managing to earn a bit of extra bunce by laying in wait for Poppies troublemakers outside the Earl.

Fully armed with repeated viewings of "The Football Factory", and the need to pay off the outstanding balance on their new conservatories, our gallant Policemen stand ready to arrest anyone wearing red, or anyone not wearing red, because, as we all know, the real "firms" never wear their team's colours.

At PATGOD, we applaud such excellent uses of resources. We hear that later this afternoon the 14,000 beer-monsters packed into Franklin's Gardens for a top of the table local derby, which will be presided over by a single lolly-pop lady. As long as her hip isn't playing up.

Corby Leads The Way Again

News reaches us that the United States of America are going to be leaving their Grosvenor Square Embassy in London for a new, purpose built construction modelled on Corby's incredible new "Cube".

The Corby Cube will contain a small theatre, a library, and er, other square rooms.

The American Cube will contain offices, reception halls, banqueting suites and waterboarding torture rooms, which will, of necessity, be en-suite.

US Embassy spokesman, Max Spermberger III, exclusively told PATGOD about the thinking behind this latest move. "We want the next US Ambassador to the Court of St James to have a 21st Century facility, that is both ergonomically plus-positive, but also carbon neutral. We want to bring the naturality of the outside world within the building itself, and create something wonderousful."

"And the fact that our Cube will be based on the Corby design give us great comfortease in these uncertain days. If the Corby Cube can withstand the best attentions of the good folks from the Exeter Estate, we are certain our Cube will be able to withstand anything Al Qaeda can throw at us."

Corby's Cube nears completion

We Know When We're Beat

In the crazy mixed-up age where Football Club Chairman write stuff like this: -


http://www.ketteringtownfc.co.uk/story.php?story_id=414


It doesn't leave very much for fanzines to do, except perhaps welcoming the players, officials and supporters of today's opponents, and hope they have a pleasant afternoon at Rockingham Road......

The White Stuff

Wikipedia describes snow thus -


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snow


The article fails to mention such trifling details as lengthy fixture backlogs, empty Saturdays, club cashflow problems, and being dragged around the shops in Leicester by ones other half.

These are such basic and obvious omissions it is no wonder people have historically showed little trust in the accuracy of the website!

Say What You See!

There was an OK thriller at the pictures a couple of years ago called "Vantage Point" about a public assassination viewed from the perspectives of several different characters. Each of them added a little more to the story, and each of the characters perception was coloured by their outlook.



You don't have to watch the film, and anyway, Matthew Fox was the baddie, so now I've ruined it for you even if you were considering popping down to Blockbuster.


You particularly don't need to rent this movie if you happened to be at Holker Street last Saturday, as a real, live version of "Vantage Point" was unfolding. The incident, as we all know, was JJ's tussle with Barrow striker Gregg Blundell which resulted in Blundell colliding with a wall and requiring hospital treatment. The same kind of wall that surrounds the Rocky Road pitch, which we were told to screen off with angled hoardings - I wonder why Barrow haven't been advised to do the same?



On the day, most Barrow fans saw JJ deliberately push their player into the wall. The Barrow Manager Dave Bayliss saw the incident as nothing less than attempted murder, and literally took the law into his own hands. Poppies supporters and officials saw the challenge as being a robust shoulder-to-shoulder clash. JJ himself feels hard done by that he was even booked! It seems that Blundell is on the mend, which is the important thing.



The confrontational, and adversarial nature of football means that we all see things differently.

For example, we Poppies fans saw the clash between Michael Wanking and John Dempster the other week, as a vicious elbow swung by the talentless York carthorse, whereas, I'm sure, the York fans merely saw their talentless carthorse getting away with swinging a vicious elbow......OK, bad example, but you know what I mean.