Kettering Town were formed in 1872 and as you would expect of a team called "Kettering Town" they were based in the Northamptonshire town of Kettering. From 1897 to 2011 they played at Rockingham Road, Kettering (see a theme here) but as seems to be the way with modern football tradition was ditched and in the summer following the death of Rushden & Diamonds, Kettering Town were moved from the town which gave rise to the club to the small, village of Irthlingborough 8 miles away...rather predicitably the gates have fallen and the cost of Nene Park (memorably decsribed to me today as the non league Wembley!) at allegedly £1,000 per day have brought Kettering Town to the brink of destruction.
So once again an away day was being embarked on with the good people of First Pink Bus (which is neither pink or run by First, but it was many moons ago, so is still called FPB by some) I woke with a cracking hangover and headed to the Uni to collect Palmer before catching the coach at Odd Down. The coach journey was uneventful (aren't they always, while a cracking little resource the FPB does lack the romance and adventure of catching the train to games) and we disembarked in Irthlingborough. I forgot my camera (again!) but this is not such an issue as it is a nowhere place, with a crap ground and litterally nothing of note to take photos of.
The team at Kettering defied belief so I will type it out here in full:
Matthews
Simpson Jones Burnell Stonehouse
Murray Canham Hogg Connolly Watkins
Cook
So against a team that are so brassic they couldn't name a full subs bench and who lost 7-0 recently, we started with 5 in midfield and the permanently shit and lazy Jamie Cook upfront on his own. A role he is quite clearly not suited for, not that I've seen anything to suggest he's suited to being a footballer at all.
Nene Park is a classic new build, unnecessary numbers of seats, souless, and due to the overuse of plastic style pannels looks instantly dirty and grubby, give me Twerton Park and its knocked about glory any day.
The game was painfully predictable, City had a lot of play and the keeper saved a few, but mainly it was lots of football with sod all end product, and playing the lone striker meant the ball went into the box and....no one was near it as there were 5 men in midfield. The game was 0-0 at half time, and this was partly due to the worst surface I've seen at a game in a fair while, Palmer remarked that perhaps they were growing potatoes as a way of solving their cash issues!
Around 50 minutes Scott Murray picked up the ball wide on the right, ran inside and from 25-35 yards (we were on the side at the other end I have no idea how far it was!) unleashed an absolute screamer! The ball rocketed over the keeper and into the back of the net, probably the best goal I've seen this season, and probably the best goal since either Mackies against Darlo or Connolly at Tamworth from last season!
At which point City fell apart again, useless punts up field, no attacking threat, no chances Kettering grew into the game Gethin tried his hardest to keep giving them chances. Cook was replaced by Amadi-Holloway on 75 minutes, and A A-H proceeded to do the square root of fuck all. I fear my early optimism might have been misplaced, he clearly has skill but hasn't contributed anything so far.
Kettering finally got the expected equaliser of 84 minutes and probably could have gone on to win the game. So it finished 1-1 and I'm losing my rag with Adie Britton now. We're shit, we're definitely going down, so at least play entertaining football.
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