Kettering are back in the Blue Square North after four seasons in the top-flight of non-league football and it looked inevitable from the start with the ill-fated reign of chairman Imran Ladaak coming to a painful end. The outspoken owner kicked off the season with promises of a play-off charge and boasted with the signing of former Real Madrid player Jaime Navarro along with a few other players coming from the Football League like David Bridges and Djoumin Sangare. Yet, with the infamous Morrell Maison in charge, the team was never going to pull any trees and some dreadful performances in the early weeks persuaded the chairman to part with Maison and put Mark Stimson in charge. The former Grays manager started with enthusiasm but still struggled to get much out of a dysfunctional team. In late September he witnessed two of his senior players, Moises Ashikodi and Jean-Paul Marna, fight over the right who to take a penalty and then both be sent off in a lamentable 5:3 home loss to Hayes & Yeading. That incident seemed to be the last straw for Ladaak who transfer-listed 90% of the senior squad and underwent a massive cost-cutting exercise. Stimson stayed on but soon the spirit in the squad started to die and they went on a run of 13 games without a win from October to January that saw them drop to the bottom four. The shortage of players was so severe that Stimson sometimes struggle to fill the bench and the team endured heavy defeats to Luton and York in December. Eventually, Stimson was fired too and former manager Mark Cooper came in but lasted only two weeks before leaving due to broken promises by the chairman. With the team broken and in disarray in the bottom four, Ashley Westwood was asked to take charge for the rest of the season. He started off well and the team won their first two games at home under his charge but the deficiencies were too big and 11 defeats in the next 13 games sealed the fate of the Poppies. The players just seemed to give up at one stage and by the end the Poppies were a sad excuse of a football team that was just turning up. At least Ladaak was gone by the end of the season and there is hope that the worst is over for the club but there is a lot of work to be done behind the scenes for the all the debts to be paid off and Kettering to start in a positive framework from next season on.
