Kettering Town teeter on the brink at the graveyard of hope
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Rory Smith
The Times
Published at 12:01AM, October 11 2012
On the edge of Stanwick Lakes, a country park and wildlife sanctuary reclaimed from disused gravel pits, stands Nene Park, a glinting, gleaming tribute to modernity.
Alan Doyle, lifelong Manchester United fan and caretaker manager of Kettering Town, the stadium’s inhabitants, calls the £30 million ground “the non-League Old Trafford,” thanks to its sleek, vaulted roof and its enormous corporate suites. Nene Park, though, is no Theatre of Dreams.
Increasingly, Nene Park looks like a graveyard of hope.
It was here that Rushden & Diamonds breathed their last, their financial troubles exacerbated by the stadium’s running costs, and it is here that Kettering Town, too, one of the most famous names in non-League football, might cease to be.
They pay Keith Cousins — the ground’s owner and part of the Elite Management Agency that looks after John Terry — £12,500 a month in rent; the utility bills at the 6,441-capacity stadium are around £1,000 a week. Earlier this week the ground’s electricity supply was cut off.
This is a club that have not paid their squad since August. The last time they took to the field, against Bashley on Saturday, they started with ten players. Their game against Leamington on Tuesday was postponed because they had only six. This is a club that is out of money and out of time.
It is not just Nene Park that brought Kettering to the brink. It all seems to start with Imraan Ladak, a recruitment entrepreneur, taking over in 2005. He brought Paul Gascoigne to the club, as manager, for 39 days. That aside, all went well: FA Cup ties with Fulham and Leeds United, competitive in the Blue Square Bet Premier. “We had a good little club,” says Ladak.
Until last year. “We could not stay at Rockingham Road, our old ground,” explains Ladak. “The owner had sold it to a private developer who wouldn’t renew our lease. You need at least a ten-year lease to be eligible for promotion to the Football League, so we were effectively in the Conference for nothing. We had to move to Nene Park, even though it is too expensive for a club at our level.
“We had enough money to cover it, but our sponsor, DRC Locums, pulled out of their deal. They still owe the club £422,000. That is where the problems started.” Here is where things get messy: Ladak used to own DRC Locums, though he claims the sponsorship agreement was signed by other board members, not himself. The two parties are believed to be discussing a settlement with DRC rejecting the amount Kettering claim they are owed.
In the summer, with Kettering’s debts at £1.2 million, Ladak brought in George Rolls, formerly of Weymouth and Cambridge United, as owner and chairman. The club had no choice but to enter a CVA — voluntary administration — and accept, with it, relegation to the Evo-Stik League Southern, two tiers below.
Rolls said he would keep the club full-time, offering John Beck, the manager, the chance to bring players in on substantial amounts of money. Within weeks he was banned from football for five years, for breaching FA rules on betting. That, says Ladak, is when he came back, trying to cut costs.
That has not worked. “We were last paid in full in August, I think,” says Laurie Walker, the club’s goalkeeper. He could have gone to Portsmouth in the summer, but Kettering refused. “We’ve had bits through, but it’s £100 here and there. If you’ve got a mortgage and kids, it doesn’t make a difference. It’s been horrendous. I’ve almost lost my home; my family had to help out.”
Ladak decided to take the club part-time; he says Beck offered his resignation, but only on the condition that he was paid what he was owed. Although Ladak says he is in negotiations with three potential investors, he is not in any position to pay anyone, so Beck is caught in limbo: he has not been sacked, but he will not accept the terms of his own resignation.
Doyle, formerly the club’s chief scout, has taken charge in the interim.“The other big drain was digs for the players,” he explains. “We had so many young ones, it was costing us £1,500 a week to put them up. We have sent them all back home, but that means we can’t train. I’ve told them to do what they can on their local parks.”
Several players, tired of not being paid, have walked out. Only 12 remain, and two have long-term injuries. Against Bashley, Ben Gathercole, the goalkeeper, was slated to play outfield, but did not show up. Kettering lost 7-0.
“I thought it was going to be double figures,” says Doyle. “We started well, but we conceded three in ten minutes at the start of the second half. It was the longest 35 minutes of my life.” Walker agrees. “It’s the first time I have cried on a football pitch,” he says. “It was the first time I’ve wondered whether I want to do this any more.”
It will only get worse: the Southern League have stymied Kettering’s attempts to de-register youth-team players to free up space in their squad — a move Ladak says he “does not understand” — meaning that Doyle only had six available for the trip to Leamington, which was called off. They are scheduled to play Bideford on Saturday. It is unclear how many players Doyle will have then. “I did ask myself after Bashley what I was doing,” says the caretaker manager. “But then you look at the fans. These people travel 400 miles to see their team on a Wednesday. There’s no glory. They were singing their hearts out as we lost against Bashley. It was the most emotional thing I’ve ever seen.”
It is for them, Doyle says, that he wants to keep the club going. It is for them that he wants to stave off the descent into the pit, for as long as he can.
Decline and fall
• Kettering Town were formed in 1872, turning professional in 1891, making them one of the country’s oldest clubs.
• In 1976, Kettering became the first team in British football to wear a sponsored shirt — Kettering Tyres — although the FA ordered they be removed four days later. Derek Dougan, the chief executive, right, simply changed the shirts to read: “Kettering T”.
• After more than a century in non-League football, Kettering came within five votes of being elected to the Football League in the 1970s.
• Former managers include Tommy Lawton, Ron Atkinson, Graham Carr, the present Newcastle chief scout, and, of course, Paul Gascoigne, who took charge of Kettering for 39 days in 2005.
• With 843 — and counting — Kettering have scored more goals in the FA Cup than any other club.
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