FourFourTwo November 2020 75training he’d say, ‘Boys, don’t worry – every
day you finish training, I’ll bring you pizzas’,
then get 15 large boxes delivered.
“Then one day he said to us, ‘Boys, I’ve had
a think: I want to give you a reward if you get
the man of the match award, so I’m going to
buy a Ferrari. If you’re the man of the match
on a Saturday, you can drive the Ferrari for
the week’. We were all sitting there thinking,
‘Where’s this coming from?’ You should have
seen our faces. We wantedtogetoutthere
and start working hard. Wecouldn’tbelieveit.
Straight away, I could picturemyselfgoing
around Northamptonshireint
Ferrari, picking up women.He
in your head where you thoug
‘Wow’. It was like the glitzand
glamour was here – I envisaged
dropping my old Corsa outside
Rockingham Road, gettinginto
this Ferrari and racing home.”
KISSES AND SHOWER SCENES
Despite the incentives, Ketteri
results quickly went south.The
finished fourth the previousse
lost in the play-offs, then start
promisingly under managerKe
It looked as if the Poppieswoul
the mix for promotion again.
Upon Gascoigne’s arrival,ho
Wilson was switched to a shor
director of football role beforel
altogether. Without those non-league street
smarts, Town’s new, more attractive passing
style was struggling to stick. A 4-1 stuffing of
Stalybridge was emphatic, but proved to be
their only win in five matches.
Onlookers believed Gascoigne and Davis
had overestimated the standard of players
and surfaces they were contending with in
the Conference North – an impression only
enhanced by team briefings showing videos
oftheworld’sbestsides, including France’s
1998 WorldCupwinners, as demonstrations
ofhowtheyshouldbe playing.
physical division at the time
ther clubs saw Gascoigne’s
extra motivation to beat us,”. “Paul and his staff wanted
aythat was difficult for us to
erereally keen for us to play
t was more suited to League
wo,but I was a teacher by
baller in addition. Myself and
bably needed a bit longer to
, andwe found it a challenge
yway because other teams
wereup for matches more.”
Solkhon backs up that view
andrecalls one video session
whenKettering’s full-backs
were compared to Roberto
Carlos and Cafu.
“We were looking at each
other thinking, ‘You want this
y toplay more like Cafu and
you want that guy to play more like Roberto
Carlos – have you seen us yet?!” he laughs.
“They wanted to implement the right things,
but after a couple of weeks the level we were
playing at took them by surprise – especially
Paul Davis. They weren’t used to it.”
Despite the growing pains, Gazza remained
hugely popular among his players, who found
him charismatic, approachable and always
on hand to provide a not-so-managerly hug
or kiss before they emerged onto the pitch.
The gaffer was also a jovial presence in the
physio room, regaling anecdotes from his life,
and occasionally ventured out to join in with
the training drills.
It was off the field where the storm clouds
were forming. Gascoigne was allegedly seen
drinking heavily in a number of pubs around
the town, with some of the newspapers who
had initially carried stories of his appointment
reporting the worrying tendency. But while
Kettering’s boss admitted that the pressures
of his job were beginning to take their toll,
he maintained that he wasn’t using drink to
deal with them.
Very quickly, the media frenzy that greeted
Gascoigne upon his arrival at the club died
down, with only local journalists turning up
at Town games. There were still crosshairs on
Gascoigne’s back as he remained a novelty
for the opposition, though – and combined
with chairman Ladak’s confident claims of
future success, Kettering had become a team
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