Kettering Roads: Northampton vs Kettering in the FA Cup.

Words: Tom Reed

Images: Tom Reed

Shot on film and digital where stated.

The Kettering Road cuts across Northampton to the East, running close to the old County ground of Northampton Town football club.

Stay on the road for 14 miles, past the White Elephant pub and you’ll end up in Kettering, one of the few market towns that make Northampton feel big, at least till last Saturday.

Kettering’s one of those places that throw up genius occasionally, and in the case of stand-up performers, two legends in the form of Hugh Dennis and James Acaster, who both happen to emerge from the modest populace of 60,000.

Northampton can only really muster Alan Carr in the comedy stakes and a 2-1 theme was to be prevalent as the Cobblers took on the Poppies in the first round of the FA Cup.

They weren’t laughing in the end.

©Tom Reed/ Terrace Edition. Northampton Town centre. On film.

Carr’s father Graham was the Northampton Town manager the last time they took on neighbours Kettering in a meaningful match back in 1989.

It was a similar FA cup affair to that on Saturday, with those heavy skies that loom after October and a test of which eleven were really on their mettle.

Des Lyman made the BBC grandstand introduction in ‘89 and Barry Davies the commentary as Northampton took the match 0-1 at Kettering’s Rockingham Road ground, thanks to a Dean Thomas long-ranger.

Tony Ansell produced the pies at both Northampton and Kettering and you can imagine the Poppies fans spluttering on their meat, potato and pastry as the Thomas 40 yarder somehow evaded the aptly named Kettering keeper Kevin Shoemake.

Kettering no longer play at Rockingham Road, which has now been replaced with a housing estate, indicative of the existential plights that non-League clubs go through on an all-too-regular basis.

©Tom Reed/ Terrace Edition. Kettering Town fans at Northampton. Digital.

Northampton fans have had to rattle buckets every decade on average, with financial crises in 1992, 2002 and 2015 leaving their mark.

The Cobblers seem in a fairly stable state now but with an incomplete East Stand after the 2015 “missing millions” scandal a reminder of the fragility of football life.

It was, however, the solidity of Northampton’s squad that was up for question going into Saturday’s FA Cup match at Sixfields which gave the game added appetite. Perpetual injury crises seem to pervade at the Cobblers, who would be down to just 14 fit senior players when all was said and done.

League 1 Northampton had no match-ready strikers of note while Kettering boasted Gary Hooper and Nile Ranger up top, prompting young Kettering lads to down pints in O’Neils pub on the Drapery in Northampton, more than up for their “big day out”.

It would be their higher level opposition who would be more fazed by the occasion, however.

©Tom Reed/ Terrace Edition. Northampton Town vs Kettering Town. On film.

Heavy is the head that wears the crown, sang Stormzy and Northampton have always seemed ill-at-ease at being the biggest club in Northamptonshire.

Perhaps that emboldened Max Griggs to spend millions and millions at Rushden and Diamonds in the ’90's instead of the Cobblers, who he was once on the board of.

The market square has just reopened in Northampton, one of the finest in the country and you can sense a historical centre which isn’t often lived up to by its football. How can you claim to be the premier team in the County when you’re pushed aside by a team from the Southern League Premier Division Central?

You could apply that famous Bjørge Lillelien commentary to the result of Cobblers-Kettering and reel off a load of Northampton names such as Charles Bradlaugh, Lesley Joseph and Matt Smith but it matters little if seminal goth band Bauhaus’ boys took a hell of a beating or not.

Northampton had been dumped out of the cup in 1-2 reverse by their neighbours several leagues below.

Kettering’s Ranger lived up to his name, making space where it needed to be made and showing higher level anticipation and heading ability for the winner in extra time.

“You should gave gone to watch the rugby” jibed the good natured Poppies in the away end, while popping off pyro, making a mockery of the detection dogs that have apparently been trained to sniff out smoke bombs.

Maybe, someone slipped the dogs a slice of Billy Bear ham when no-one was looking.

Cobblers fans wish they didn’t have to watch themselves, they are as loyal as they come but then so are Kettering’s.

The X10 bus will trundle from Northampton to Kettering on Monday morning, past the White Elephant, with the bragging rights.