Thursday, October 27, 2005

Gazza appointed Kettering boss

Paul Gascoigne has had another twist in his football carrer today as he was appointed Conference side Kettering boss. The 38 year old recently took over the club as part of a consurtium. "It feels good, I'm excited. I know it's Kettering Town and it isn't Premiership football," Gascoigne said. "But the plans we have worked on with (consortium leader) Imraan Ladak for the past six weeks have been exciting." The Midlands club, founded in 1872, is currently fifth in the Conference North - two divisions below the Football League. They have been drawing crowds of about 1,000 to league games this season, and Gascoigne said the aim was to become a league club.


"They haven't been in the Football League in 133 years, so that will be one of the main objectives to get this team up there. That will be something for the supporters to look forward to," he said. "I'm not going to say we'll do it this season or next season, there's a lot we can improve on, whether that's with the players we've got now or the players we bring in."

Gazza won a total of 58 caps at international level for England and was part of the Tottenham Hotspur team that won the FA Cup in 1991 although he seriously damaged his knee in a wild tackle early in the first half of their 2-1 extra-time win over Nottingham Forest. He played briefly for China's Gansu Tianma and England's Boston United as player-coach before retiring as a player in 2004. Consortium leader Ladak said he would make money available for Gascoigne to spend, but stressed the club would not have unlimited funds.

"We've had a look at a couple of players over the past few weeks. A couple of clubs have come up with extortionate prices because they feel that the club's going to be awash with money," he said. "We have a stadium issue that we need to sort out urgently because our lease is due to run out in the next few years. "So while there will be money to spend, we won't be paying anything over an acceptable price for players."

What a story for Gazza. His carrer has taken in from the likes of Lazio and Tottenham but he know ends up with conference side Kettering with all due respect. I am very intrested to see how he does at Kettering and hopefully in years to come they will be in the Football League. I suppose it is sort of good news for Kettering because he is a very high profiled person but it could be sort of bad news as well because Kettering might prefer to just get on with their business and not of lots of media surrounding the club now.