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Members of the team |
The dream is over, but ‘Townies’ vow to bounce back
Defeat in FA Cup debut further marred by sideline dust-up between player and manager
THEY were a team of Islington and Camden postmen, sports trainers and teenagers with an impossible dream: to win the nation’s most coveted silverware, the FA Cup.
But Kentish Town FC’s hopes were dashed in dramatic fashion on Tuesday as the team, hit by the loss of key players, tumbled out of the cup in a match marred by a sideline punch-up.
Barnsbury teacher Tom McMullen, the team’s captain, was unable to lead his side in the replay against Wellingborough Town at the Dog and Duck Stadium in Northamptonshire because he was in Wales supervising a camping trip for special needs children.
Star striker Lee Scott, currently on remand for alleged burglary, was also sorely missed.
And in the worst possible end to the club’s FA Cup dream, Kentish Town’s star coach Clement Temile ended up on the floor in a dugout dispute with one of his substitutes as the final whistle blew.
The Townies had just lost 2-0 to Wellingborough, nicknamed “The Doughboys” after the local pork and pastry delicacy of “Hock and Dough”.
While police and paramedics attended to Mr Temile in the sponsors’ lounge, players and management rallied around him, expressing hopes that the one-time Nigerian sporting hero would not leave the club because of the incident.
Club manager Frank Zanre said: “It is out of order, but we’ve got to grow from this. Obviously, we hope Clement will stay with the club. It’s too early to say what the outcome will be but Clement has our full support.” Mr Zanre confirmed that the player involved, who left in a car immediately after the fracas, would not be turning out for the club again.
Mr Temile’s flooring capped a disappointing but spirited evening at the Dog and Duck.
This was grassroots football at its rootsiest: the first qualifying round of the world’s most famous cup tournament, the antidote to the multi-million pound world of the Premiership.
The Townies, who travelled to the ground in a rented minibus, rolling past “pick your own raspberries” farms and derelict steel plants, had never been so far from home.
Away support was thin on the ground in the Peter Ebdon stand (the two times world snooker champion is the Northamptonshire club’s honorary president), but the cheers of five “Kentish Town WAGS” – as they call themselves – ably matched the volume of home support in the stands. One of the group, Daniella O’Donoghue, had left work at lunchtime to drive up with her friends for the big game.
She said: “We see a lot of their games. We’re Kentish Town girls.”
Christina Zanre added: “They’re a good team. It has nothing to do with boys in shorts.”
The teams tied in their first encounter at Barnet on Sunday afternoon. Although Kentish Town were formed 14 years ago on the pitches of Market Road and Wellingborough Town is the sixth-oldest football club in the country, the teams were on level pegging until the second half, when the Doughboys dashed the visitors’ FA Cup hopes with a blistering volley. It was followed by a questionable penalty.
Maria Zanre, daughter of the Townies’ manager, said after the game: “It’s very disappointing. But we’re going to be back next year, bigger and better – facepaint, colours, balloons, the lot.” |
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