Paul Gascoigne: How Kettering Town manager’s job lasted 39 days

Big names were not new at Rockingham Road. Ron Atkinson cut his managerial teeth with Kettering in the early 1970s before moving on to clubs including West Brom, Manchester United, Sheffield Wednesday and Aston Villa.

He was followed as player-boss by Wolves and Northern Ireland forward Derek Dougan, whose team became the first in British football to wear a sponsor’s name on their shirts.

A decade later, Kettering had a side including former England centre-back Dave Watson and midfielder Steve Daley, whose £1.4m move from Wolves to Manchester City in 1979 was a then English transfer record.

Nothing, though, could match the fevered interest after Gascoigne was spotted a few days before his appointment – replacing Kevin Wilson – was announced.

“There had been rumours about a consortium taking over the club for a few weeks and then at a home game Gazza and Jimmy ‘Five Bellies’ [Gardner] as well as Imraan Ladak were present in the main stand,” recalls season-ticket holder Iain Holliday, who first watched a Kettering game in 1968.

“Not long after, a press conference was held at the ground and the takeover was confirmed. I was at work that day and I was excited at the prospect of Paul Gascoigne being the new manager, although I did have reservations as to how long he would last.”

Gascoigne was not the only England player mentioned in connection with the Poppies at that time.

“We heard rumours that a guy called Imraan Ladak was coming in and about all these big players – Les Ferdinand, Steve McManaman, Darren Anderton,” former player Brett Solkhon told a recent edition of BBC Radio Northampton’s Non-League Scene.

“I remember, growing up, watching Gazza in the FA Cup final [Tottenham v Nottingham Forest] when he got injured – and my first World Cup was Italia 90, how brilliant Gazza was then?

“I got a call – ‘Hi Brett, it’s Paul Davis here, I’ve got the new gaffer on the phone’ – and then Gazza came on. It was a surreal moment.”