Saturday’s clash at the Ledger Stadium will be the first competitive fixture between the two sides with just last season’s friendly averting a blank canvas.

The Pirates have had a mixed start to the season winning their opening match at home to Spalding United 2-1, drawing 0-0 away at Needham Market and narrowly losing 3-2 away at Halesowen Town. At this early stage of the season, Real Bedford reside in eleventh place.

In contrast, Kettering Town are in second place in the league with a stunning nine points from our first three games having extended our unbeaten run on Saturday with a 2-1 home win against Barwell, following a 3-0 home victory vs Leiston and the opening fixture 3-4 away at Royston Town. With the news that Poppies favourite Lewis White has left the club together with the growing injury list for the Poppies, Simon Hollyhead has some interesting selection choices to make especially with one eye on the Bank Holiday Monday fixture at home against Harborough Town and the FA Cup clash at Long Eaton.

Of the remaining play off teams, top of the table unbeaten Bishop’s Stopford are away at bottom side Stratford, Harborough Town are at home against tenth place St Ives, surprise package and league debutants Quorn visit AFC Sudbury and Halesowen Town are away at struggling AFC Stamford.

As a common feature with games at this level, there are former Poppies players on the opposition team sheet. Playing in the friendly that day for the Poppies was a trialist Malachie Soile, who later signed for the Pirates. The only Poppy to play for Real Bedford is Sam Cartwright, who made 12 appearances (on loan from Peterborough United) in 2019-20 season, scoring 1 goal against Kidderminster Harries in a 3-5 defeat at Latimer Park. In his short career with the Poppies, he scored, was sent off (on the opening day of the season against AFC Telford United) and scored an own goal in the 0-2 home defeat against Boston United!

Enjoy the game and tune into Poppies Media for live match commentary and coverage.

COYP!

REAL BEDFORD

Season            V         Comp              F-A     Att:     Poppies Scorers

2024-25           A         Friendly          2-2       203      Hart, (Trialist – L Sherif)

Played for both clubs (1)                                                                 

Sam Cartwright.

REAL BEFORD – THE LAST 3 SEASONS

                             LEAG             P          W        D         L         F          A     PTS     POS   

2024-25           PISLD1C         40        33        5          2          129      33     104      1^st

2023-24           SSMLP            36        28        7          1          117      24     91        1^st

2022-23           SSML1            38        32        3          3          123      29     99        1^st

REAL BEDFORD

Manager                                   Rob Sinclair

Ground                                      Ledger Stadium

Nickname                                  The Pirates

League Position                        12^th – 4 Pts from 3 games

Leading League Goal Scorer  (3)  Joey Evans

THE PIRATES SO FAR…..