Jump up if you hate K*ttering!

Daune Darby, m’lord…

Rushden and K*ttering have met ten times in the league before. The Poppies huffed and puffed their way to earning 6 points from a possible 30, with Rushden winning 18-5 on aggregate. Rushden have never lost a league match at Rockingham Road.

Darby hates the Kettering!

Poppies fans will argue that those results were all a very long time ago (although surely given Kettering’s long, graceful history, 7 years is but a drop in the ocean? Grrrrr, I’m envious just thinking about those 100 years of Southern League football we’ve missed out on!).

 Inflated with confidence after tearing apart teams like Vauxhall Motors last year, Kettering believe that the time has come “to put the Diamonds in their place”. Northamptonshire’s-third-best-team™ have torn the division apart in their first three games. After drawing 1-1 with a Fleetwood-less FGR, they stumbled their way to draws with Alty and Gray’s… Kettering now sit a heady 16th in the table, winless, but - my God! - haven’t they a great history behind them!

Below, some of YouTube’s finest…

Kettering 0-4 Rushden 

Kettering 1-5 Rushden

Kettering 0-2 Duane Darby

History indeed.

A-Line Arena.

Andy Burgess has done his best to stir up the situation even more by (succeeding in) winding up KTFC fans and players alike. In his article for the Mirrorhe predicted relegation for the Poppies. The KTFC fans bit the bait (cue a 6-page thread on the Poppies fans’ messageboard). Burge’s most recent article claimed that he was anticipating a hostile reception, casually dropping in the 10-man 2-0 win of a few years ago. Good stuff, Andy. Burge will be the one player who can understand the KTFC-RDFC derby, and will inform his fellow players all about it.

Crowd trouble, whilst not really expected, is keeping a number of families away from the tie, although a crowd in excess of 3000 will be present. A large police presence will seperate fans, and attempt to keep the peace. Imram says nothing will happen, so we can all rest easy now. The fireworks and other ammunition thrown over the wall in the direction of the RDFC fans the last time the two clubs met - that was different. Right?

One thing is for certain. A win is all that matters on Saturday (although some KTFC fans will say that a draw on the day is a morale win for the Poppies and a morale defeat for the Diamonds - these are generally the same breed of fans who go on about this “history” thing) and, come 5pm Saturday 23rd of August, bragging rights will be gained for the majority of the season. With Kettering fans wetting themselves at the prospect of defeating the second-best-team-in-the-county, what crueler a blow could there be than a demoralising defeat, putting Rushden at the top and Kettering by the bottom. History is relative or, in this case, trivial. What happens on the pitch and in the stands/slab of concrete (delete where applicable) is all that matters.

Roll on Saturday!

Rushden vs. Wrexham

A win today sees Rushden climb the table to first, whilst a draw sees them remain in the play-offs.

Pre-match

 

The Wrexham team coach arrives

 ”Nice to see so many away fans” says the Radio Diamonds commentator.

Our photographer shows off his ticket for next Satuday's grudge match.

Wrexham inspect the pitch...

Pre-match: two drums sit atop the PDB

The "Beckham Flag"

Soem more pre-match preperation.

Wrexham fans

Rushden fans (in terrace and down sides)

Wrexham fans

Rushden go close to breaking the deadlock, but Phillips' goal is disallowed

Rushden attack.

0-0 @ HT, thanks to a couple of great saves from MarrioTT

Half-time watering...

The players return for the 2nd half

The second half kicks off.

1-0

 Barely 5 minutes on the pitch, Sam Smith puts the Diamonds 1-0 up, reporoducing his effort against Ebbsfleet on Tuesday.

Wrexham fail to convert their chances...

Wrexham fans celebrate after regaining equality

It had been coming, but it was nonetheless dissapointing to see Rushden concede their 1st goal of the season. With Corcoran off the field injured Wrexham took advantage of the situation to level the scores.

Alan Marriott was awarded the MOTM award

Today's man of the match

Marriott was largely responsible for keeping Rushden in the game, with a number of great saves, but Sam Smith will be the hero of the day after scoring his second goal of the season. Like his goal against Ebbsfleet, Smith scored just minutes after coming off the bench.

The result will see Rushden rise to tied 2nd in the table, after gaining 7 points from a possible 9 in their opening games, conceding just once.

Wrexham preview…

Thanks to all the Wrexham fans for the constructive criticism regarding this article. Please bookmark this page and return on Sunday for *live* match photos.

Two and a half years ago I attended just my second ever RDFC match (living in Ireland I don’t get over much). The game, Rushden 0-2 Wrexham, was just one result in an incredibly poor run of form for the Diamonds. In the 13 games prior to the Wrexham loss, Rushden had won just once, and totted up just 4 points (from a possible 39). The match has more than likely been forgotten by the majority of the two-and-a-half thousand fans there (and understandable so - it was crap, even for Wrexham fans I would imagine), but for me it sparked off a bitter and unrequited hatred of all things Welsh.

I had travelled all the way over the Irish Sea, had I not? I had dragged along two other unfortunates, two people who shivered and sneezed through the 90 minutes, had I not? I felt not just disappointment for the result, and vague stupidity for the time and money spent in getting to the game, but also guilt for the two poor souls who I had forced into enduring the game with me (them being Premier League fans). And those blokes from Clwyd had gone and beaten us 2-0.

We went on to finish bottom that year, with Northampton gaining promotion - a poor combination on anyone’s reckoning. Despite being 8 points off safety I always attributed the relegation to the Wrexham defeat - Christ, they only finished 12th, they didn’t even need the three points that day, I thought.

Two seasons later, the Welsh ended the season in a similar position: bottom, eight points from safety, with Welsh rivals Swansea City enjoying a promotion season. Wrexham were relegated to the Conference, for the first time in their history, and the secretive RDFC/WFC grudge match - known only to a select few - was on the cards.

Wrexham players and fans celebrate together after achieving survival two seasons ago.

Of course, even ignoring the debatable importance of the game in January 2006, Sunday’s game is already set to be a corker. Wrexham are somewhat of a bogey-team for the Diamonds, us having never beaten the Robinsat all in our 6-game history with the club. Rushden have drawn twice, but lost the other four encounters.

Wrexham have had an intriguing start to the season. Being outplayed for much of their opening game, they still managed to score five and beat Stevenage, much to the surprise of their fans, and manager, Brian Little. “We must keep it in perspective a little” he warned after the game. Sure enough, the club came back to earth with a bump, failing to score in their next match and losing to York City. This time it was the fans who had everything to say:

“You can defend brilliantly for 89 minutes, but if you can’t score at the other end, it only takes one lapse in concentration and you go home with nil points!”

“We were rubbish, no midfield and a carthorse up front. And the return of the hoof.”

“Let’s hope we can get back on track at Rushden, there’s no reason why we cant get at least a draw if we play like we did against Stevenage in the 2nd half, which would be a good result.”

A large-enough crowd is expected on Sunday, with upwards of 350 Wrexham fans expected to make the trip. With Sunday being one of the “big games” this year, and with RDFC having enjoyed a successful start to the season, the crowd may well break the 2000-mark for the first time this term.

Incidentally, the match will be the 900th in Rushden’s history. The milestone match will not be played on Saturday at 3pm as God intended, but on a Sunday, thanks to Wrexham’s complaint of the short gap between their games (yet we didn’t complain when we played 8 games in 16 days - or something - last year). It will be Andy Burgess’ 250th league game, which will move him into 2nd place in the all-time League appearances list.

Rushden, surprisingly, are favourites for the game, with odds of 6/5 to Wrexhams’ 2/1 (courtesy of Blue Square). Both clubs have odds of 13/2 to become champions this term.

As always, RDFC Blog will supply live match photos.

Rushden vs. Ebbsfleet

Pre-match preparations...

 

The PDB begins to fill...

 

A full, but mute PDB, according to the radio. "More noise on the pitch than off it".

1  Marriott 3  Jelleyman 5  Hope 2  Osano 4  Gulliver 8  Woodhouse 11  Burgess 23  Kelly 6  McDonald 15  Tomlin 9  Phillips  Substitutes 18  Burton 24  Corcoran 21  Beecroft 17  Wolleaston 25  Smith

Ebbsfleet Utd. 1  Cronin 2  Hawkins 5  Smith 24  Charles 3  Opinel 11  Stone 8  Long 14  Barrett 18  Moore 16  Shakes 9  Gash  Substitutes 15  Ricketts 21  Mott 17  Purcell 19  Akinde 22  Appiah

A pathetic amount of Ebbsfleet fans, even from a Rushden perspective.

Rushden defend.

A return of the imfamous "Beckham Flag". For more info, see the media centre section of this site, and go to "Best of the Rest" photos...

Half-time sees the game remain at 0-0.

It's not hard to see why we think Kettering Town is full of shit.... NP is all its beauty.

 Other half-time scores: Kettering are drawing with Grays, Eastbourne are 2-1 up away at Stevenage (!), Salisbury Northwich, Barrow and Woking are all winning 1-0 away at home - against FGR, Burton, Alty and Oxford, respectively - Cambridge are 1-0 up over Kiddy, while Mansfield lead by the same scoreline at Histon. Lewes are losing 2-0 at home to Crawley.

The players re-emerge

...and the match re-starts.

Match action

Rushden 2-0 Ebbsfleet

Grays 1-0 Kettering

Smiles all round!

The match trundles to a close...

And then, with 15 minutes to go, a double celebration. “Grays 1-0 Kettering” popped up on the scoreboard followed, on the pitch, by Lee Phillips making it 2-0 to the Diamonds.

Full-time saw Rushden keep all 3 points, without having conceded a goal this season. Roll on Sunday.

Kettering fans in OTT reaction shocker…

Andy Burgess is as true a Diamond as one can get in this season’s squad, and his baiting of Kettering fans in his weekly Daily Mirror  worked a charm. In his article he predicted that the Poppies would be making a quick return to the BSN. In an expected fashion, KTFC fans took the bait; cue a 4-page response on Poppynet. Below are a selection of the best comments…

“F*****G direones scumbag Mother F****R he will get major shit at RR”

“Do we really care what Andy Burgess thinks?”, asked one fan, following it with a  3-paragraph comment.

“It was in the mirror for crying out loud! No-one will have seen it.”

“I haven’t read the article and I never will”, sniffed another fan.

For more reading, click here…