By Simon Wright – Follow
me on Twitter @Siwri88
Another
popular football club went to the wall on Monday as non-league outfit Kettering
Town went bust.
They were
officially wound up at the High Court in London over an unpaid debt of some
£58,000.
The Poppies (logo pictured),
who have slipped down to the eighth tier in English football in recent years
have had to relocate grounds, face transfer embargos and not been able to pay
the wages of the players in recent years.
Now it looks like last weekend’s home defeat to Slough Town in an FA Cup
qualifier is the last game the club will ever play.
Kettering’s
future has been in doubt for some time.
Last October, they were forced to leave Nene Park, the former home of
Rushden & Diamonds as they weren’t able to pay to keep the electricity on
at the ground. After a groundshare in
Corby towards the backend of the last campaign, they were playing this season
at Latimer Park.
After several
hearings, High Court official Registrar Jones ruled it was right to exercise
his discretion to wind up the club for good and join the likes of Scarborough,
Rushden, and Chester City to have all been made extinct within the last
decade. Thankfully the latter reformed
and are back in the Conference, but the former two were not so lucky.
Support is
already being drummed up in the town and around Northamptonshire in a desperate
plea to rescue the ailing side. They had
been playing their football in the Southern League Division One Central.
This ruling
means an official receiver takes over the club for its final days. His job will now be to sell the remaining
players and staff to pay off the debts, and then close the business down.
Founded in
1872, Kettering Town turned professional in 1891 but never quite managed to
break into the Football League.
They came
close on four separate occasions, finishing runners-up of the Football
Conference in 1981, 1989, 1994 and 1998.
Media
publicity was also drawn up from a brief appointment of Paul Gascoigne as the
club’s manager in 2005. The former
England icon was part of a consortium led by Imraan Ladak, who controlled the
club for the next six years. Sadly
Gascoigne’s private problems got in the way of a possible fruitful relationship
and his tenure lasted a sorry 39 days.
The club’s
best times came in the FA Cup. The
Poppies made the first round proper on 41 separate occasions and reached the
fourth round in 1989 and 2009. They
appeared twice live on Sky Sports in 1994-95 when the cameras saw them topple
league side Plymouth Argyle in the first round.
They also
faced Premier League Fulham as recently as 2009 at Rockingham Road, managed by
the current England boss Roy Hodgson. Kettering lost bravely 4-2 in the fourth
round. Later in the same year, they
played Leeds United in a live ITV second round tie, and took the Yorkshire side
to a replay (video below), only to lose the return match 5-1 at Elland Road.
The ruling
brings a sad and desperate end to Kettering’s recent football existence, and
the fans have once again lost out. They
are another example of how finances in football need to be controlled better,
especially for the non-league outfits in the professional game.
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