Kettering 3-1 St Ives

Whether it’s the longer travelling distances or not it appears that home form is vitally important in Div 2N. 30 games into the season there have only been 8 away wins and runaway leaders Cambridge Nomads have been responsible for four of them. Consequently Kettering were confident of a good performance against St Ives even though the visitors hardly had to travel far. In bitterly cold conditions Kettering took the game to the visitors and opened the scoring when Dom Cusk was on hand to grab his now customary far post tap in. The visitors were never out of the game and in an even first half equalised when a short corner was slotted home from close range. With the half drawing to a close Kettering were awarded a short corner on the whistle and following a mass scramble Mike Crane was on hand to fire home giving Kettering the half time lead.
The second half saw Kettering dominate large periods of the second half but their finishing let them down. Pat Cawley extended Kettering’s lead when he pounced on a loose ball and fired home. Jacques Lourens had chances to score but couldn’t find the finish required and Andy Sellers had a goal ruled out that required VAR to see if the ball was in the circle even though he wasn’t. Paul Donnelly saw green late on after slipping on the wet surface and cleaning out a St Ives forward.
Special bravery mention to man of the match Will Banfield who showed the value of face masks at short corners when he took a misplaced drag flick in the face via his shoulder (or the other way round - he never saw it).
This victory moves Kettering into a mid table position and next week they face their first visit to Norwich to face Norwich City 3s hoping to break their away day hoodoo.