With Kettering Town relegated to the Southern Premier because of their financial troubles and the consequent Company Voluntary Arrangement, Leamington will be facing the Poppies for the first time since 1981/82 next season. Kettering are now playing at Nene Park, the former home of Rushden and Diamonds which briefly saw League 1 football. Indeed, before Leamington got under away, I used to go and watch Rushden play from time to time: for example, I saw them draw with Queen's Park Rangers.
Rushden (formed from a merger of Rushden and Irthlingborough Diamonds) were the ultimate benefactor club, but it all ended in tears and the Irthlingborough stadium must be a ghost of its former self. It will be a game worth going to, all the same.
There was an intense rivalry between Rushden and Kettering up the road. The Rushden fanzine once suggested that the team from 'Rocking Horse Road' had launched a space mission to Uranus in the hope of finding intelligent life there as there was none in Kettering. Quite what Kettering fans think of playing at Nene Park is an interesting question. Diamonds fans have, in the meantime, formed a phoenix club.
I read in The Non-League Paper that Kettering are going to have a playing budget of £20,000 a month. Totally unnecessary in the SLP, but every year we get one: Truro City, AFC Totton (now without their benefactor) and now Kettering.
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