Kettering Town v Stamford

Pitching in Southern League Premier Central Division

Tuesday 23rd September 2025  19:45

Referee:  Matthew Jackson              Assistants: Scott Postin and Wayne Bright

Kettering would be looking to continue on their winning ways following on from Saturday’s defeat of Bishop’s Stortford curtesy of a good second half performance. Tonight’s opponents Stamford, on paper should be eminently beatable. Currently sitting in last place in the league table with no wins so far and their only points coming from three home draws. Their match on Saturday saw them beaten 4-1 at Needham Market.

With the Kettering squad hopefully recovering from it’s recent bout of sickness within the camp,  Simon Hollyhead would still be without the services of George Forsyth, suffering from a toe injury  and Shane Flynn sidelined by injury since the Quorn game. Brandon Barker had recovered sufficiently from illness to take a place on the sub’s bench but defender Aksum White was unavailable for selection. Callum Powell and Ismael Fatadjo would both start with Alfie Lewis and Will Glennon dropping to the bench. At attacking formation was selected with a centre back pairing of Caden Voice and Levi Andoh flanked by Wes Young and Eddie Oppong.

   Half Time: Kettering Town 0  Stamford 0

   Full Time: Kettering Town 1   Stamford 1

Another dip on the Kettering roller coaster ride. After a good first half display where Jackson in the Stamford goal kept his side in the game with some good saves to keep the game scoreless at halftime. It seemed that it would be only a matter of time before Kettering’s superiority would break the deadlock. The sending off of Stamford’s goalkeeper Jackson for a second cautionable offence after sixty-three minutes would have appeared to have tipped the scales further in the host’s favour.

However, with a stand-in goalkeeper, it was only a brilliant individual goal by Callum Powell after seventy-seven minutes which saw Kettering get their noses in front. Having taken the lead the hosts, sensing an opponent there for the taking, appeared to abandon their game plan and started to lose team cohesion as players appeared to start playing for themselves instead of the team being unwilling to the careful build up. The team showed very little discipline when faced with seven minutes of additional time added at the end of the game and instead of making the additional player count seeing the game out through retaining possession with controlled passing, conceded the ball far too easily to a team with nothing to lose. And so it was that two points were carelessly thrown away at the death with a late, late equaliser remarkably similar to last season’s game at Stamford. A ninety-ninth minute lapse of concentration allowed an  equaliser letting two points slip contributing to consigning the team to the play-offs. It remains to be seen what this error will cost the team at season’s end.

Full match report to follow.