Kettering Town v Bashley in the Southern League Premier. Little backstory so you'll see why I'm posting this up:
In 2011 Kettering moved from their ground in Kettering (Rockingham Road) to the former home of their nearest (absolutely hated) rivals, Rushden and Diamonds, 8 miles away. Rushden and Diamonds were created 20 years earlier by the owner of a shoe company and he bankrolled them up to League One in 2004, before he pulled out and they went back down to the Conference, eventually going out of business in 2011. One of the things he built was a £30m stadium (Nene Park), much to the envy of Kettering fans.
This move to NP was very unpopular with their fans and has meant their fanbase has been split since then. In the 2011/12 season they won their first game behind an expensively assembled squad but after that went on a terrible run and their crazy owner decided to stop paying their players in November 2011. Quite a few left and the team slide down the Conference National table. In April 2012 they barely saw off a winding-up order by HMRC (UK tax) and in the summer they went into a Company Voluntary Agreement, to pay 10% of their £400k debts. Due to Conference National rules this saw them demoted to the Southern League Premier (2 levels below the CN) with a 10 point penalty to start the season.
Since then in the SLP they've done very badly, drawing 5 and losing 3 of their 8 games. They've also been knocked out of the FA Cup and FA Trophy at the first hurdles. The club's owner still hasn't been paying the new players that came in which has resulted in many of them leaving or putting in 14-day notices to leave. On Tuesday they played a County Cup game and only had 13 players, 2 of which were goalkeepers. Since then another player has left due to his 14 days expiring which now leaves them with 12 players. They're expected to draft in some of their youth players but this is up in the air and not a certainty, either way it's a bad situation.
As you can see from the last link the caretaker manager's just looking to field a team and if you listen to his interview after their game on Saturday it sounds extremely bleak.
Bashley are 2nd bottom in the SLP, but have managed to win a couple of games. It's not really their form that matters for this bet, it's the circumstances that Kettering are under that are important. Players that are being paid and are at a stable club will always perform better than players that aren't. Coral are offering 2.1, Bet365 and Ladbrokes are offering evens. I managed to get 2.25 at B365 yesterday.
Every year there is a complete basket case club in English non-league football and the bookies fail to pick it up. In 2009 some of you may recall when Weymouth had to field their youth team against Rushden and Diamonds because their first-team walked out when they found out their insurance premiums weren't being paid. Rushden won 9-0 and the bookies apparently lost around £750,000, with the odds on Rushden going from 3.5 to 1.3 before kick-off. In 2011 Kettering played Grimsby and the bookies didn't pick it up, Grimsby won and the bookies lost. There are other cases like Darlington last season, Truro possibly this season.
Apologies for the long post, but I thought this might be of some use. I don't think Kettering games will be available for betting after this one so it's fill your boots time!
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Any UK/Euro gamblers on here?
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