Kettering Tour 2016

With match day being preceded by a few days of rain, this game was always in doubt, due to the fact that Kettering Town play on a cabbage patch in a park. With that in mind we met in the Sicilian Café for breakfast and received the news that the game was on, via the Kettering Town Twitter account. Crack on, polish off breakfast and jump on the party train to Ketamine.

We arrived in Kettering about 12:30 to some light drizzle. This soon stopped and by the time we arrived at the Alexandra Arms, the sun was poking out. We grabbed few beers and settled down to watch the enthralling 0-0 on the TV between Hull City and Arsenal. What ever happened to their cup exploits? (Come on you Horns!)

The Alex is a traditional town centre street corner local where you always find a beer from an unknown brewery. The landlord takes great pride in searching out new beers and breweries all the time on the 14 hand pumps split over two bars. We sampled the P51, a chocolate porter from the Kings Cliffe Brewery and Phipps’ IPA. Both were outstanding and with the sun streaming through the windows, we were on our way to a decent day out.

   

Then the bad news arrived. Kettering claimed at 14:00 that the referee had called the match off, as it had been raining for two hours. As we had been shielding our eyes from the sun to see the TV, this was some kind of bad joke. Depressed and slightly tipsy, we decided to stay in Kettering for a while and visit the Three Cocks, no not the Kettering Supporters Club, but a well-stocked free house on the outskirts of the town centre.

Here we quaffed many flagons of the superb Belhaven Black, a dark Scottish stout. We remained here for some time as we played several games of dominoes, the rules of which were alien to all of us, as well as a few games of skittles before boarding the train home.

Once back in Dunstable, we popped in to the Wheatsheaf to have our hearing impaired by The Lash, a local rock covers band. Surprisingly, they had some real ale on, in the shape of Lock Keeper's Launch Ale from the local Berkhamstead brewery, Haresfoot. Despite there being no football, another great day out.