Town in Northamptonshire, England
Kettering
In 1976 Kettering Town became the first English club to wear a shirt sponsor. The FA objected, even to 'Kettering T', and the wording had to go.
Key information
- County
- Northamptonshire
- Nation
- England
- Known for
- Boot and shoe making, Wicksteed Park, the Baptist Missionary Society, the Poppies
- What locals are called
- Kettering folk; the football team are the Poppies
- Famous people
- Sir Alfred East, Andrew Fuller, Charles Wicksteed, Paul Gascoigne (briefly as a manager)
- Football clubs
- Kettering Town (the Poppies)
About Kettering
The day 'Kettering T' tried to outwit the FA
In 1976 Kettering Town did something no English club had done before: they put a sponsor's name on their shirts. The backer was Kettering Tyres, and the idea came from Derek Dougan, the former Northern Ireland striker who was the club's player-manager and chief executive. The Football Association was not amused. Kettering's answer was cheerfully cheeky: they shortened the name to 'Kettering T' and claimed the T stood for Town. The FA rejected that too and threatened a fine, so the club removed the sponsorship wording. Within a few years, though, sponsors were everywhere in English football. A small Northamptonshire club had started it. Kettering's other brush with football fame came in 2005, when Paul Gascoigne took over as manager. He lasted 39 days. Kettering Town are nicknamed the Poppies and now play at Latimer Park in Burton Latimer, having left Rockingham Road.
The widow's parlour that sent missionaries around the world
On 2 October 1792, a dozen Baptist ministers met in the home of a widow, Martha Wallis, in Kettering. They founded what became the Baptist Missionary Society, and the collection that day came to £13 2s 6d. The driving force was Andrew Fuller, the town's Baptist pastor. The society's first missionary was William Carey, a cobbler turned preacher, who sailed for India in 1793. The story of a small-town meeting that ended up shaping missionary work worldwide is still told in Kettering, and Fuller's name lives on in the town's Baptist church.
A town built on boots and shoes
Like much of Northamptonshire, Kettering made its living from footwear. Through the nineteenth century, workshops and then large factories turned out boots and shoes, and clothing manufacture grew alongside them. The railway helped. Kettering sits on the Midland Main Line, which carried goods out to London and brought workers in, so the town grew fast in Victorian times. The shoe trade has shrunk, but the red-brick factory buildings are still part of the town's look.
Why Kettering has one of Britain's early playgrounds
Charles Wicksteed ran an engineering firm in the town, and he cared about children's play. He bought land on the edge of Kettering and opened Wicksteed Park in 1921, making it one of the country's earliest purpose-built leisure parks. His company went on to make playground equipment, and the park gave him a place to test it. Swings and slides there were designed for ordinary families rather than wealthy ones. The park still has its lake, a miniature railway and a water chute. Generations of Northamptonshire children have been taken there on the first warm weekend of the year.
The painter who made the town's gallery
Sir Alfred East was born in Kettering in 1844 and became one of Britain's best-known landscape painters. He was knighted in 1910, and the town's art gallery carries his name. The Alfred East Art Gallery opened in 1913, the year he died. It sits near the Manor House Museum, so Kettering's cultural quarter is compact and easy to walk around. In the town centre, the parish church of St Peter and St Paul has a tall medieval spire that can be seen from across the surrounding fields. It is the landmark to look for when you arrive.