World snooker champion Kyren Wilson will be rooting for hometown club Kettering Town when they take on Doncaster Rovers in the FA Cup second round.
Wilson used to be a ball-boy at the club’s old Rockingham Road home and still follows the club’s fortunes despite his commitments on the World Snooker tour.
Kettering have already knocked out League One neighbours Northampton Town and victory on Sunday over Doncaster, from League Two, would put them in round three for the first time since 2008-09.
“The lads are doing great, it’s great to see the whole town behind them; keep the belief, keep the dream going and up the Poppies,” Wilson told BBC Radio Northampton’s Non-League Scene.
The 32-year-old had to wait to find out how they had got on against Northampton after falling victim to jetlag in China.
He said: “It got to about 2.00am and unfortunately the jetlag hit and I didn’t find out the result till the following morning when I turned up for my practice session. It was a tight one but they managed to get the job done.”
Asked about his memories of ball-boy duties, he said: “My dad would take me to Rockingham Road. I was just desperate to get my hands on the ball and kick it back to (former player) Craig Norman.
“I’ve lived in Kettering all of my life, I was born in Kettering and all of my family are from here. I remember at half-time my Dad treating me to a Cup-a-Soup because it was absolutely freezing, typical UK weather.
“He used to travel around (to watch them)… he’s got a video of one of the FA Cup games where he runs on the pitch with a giant banana, he’s proud of that sort of stuff.”
Having once been one of the leading teams in non-league football, playing one division below the English Football League, Kettering are now down in the seventh tier.
But they are four points clear at the top of Southern League Premier Central and unbeaten in nine games in all competitions, having beaten Leiston 2-1 on Saturday, with the winning goal scored by midfielder Isiah Noel-Williams.
Wilson regards the club as “a bit of a sleeping giant” and continued: “They always have good numbers watching them no matter where they play, they’ve got good FA Cup history, they are top of the most goals scored in the FA Cup and the likes of (former managers) Gazza (Paul Gascoigne), Ron Atkinson, big high-profile people coming to the club (in the past) – and it’s looking good for the league as well.
“Hopefully promising times are ahead for the Poppies.”
Promotion the main priority
Kettering were taken over by George Akhtar in May, with Fabian Forde joining the club at the same time as director of football.
Forde, who played a Football League game for Watford in 2001, insists that “all roads lead to promotion”, with the league their main priority.
“We do have ambitions of going up this season so we really had to knuckle down and concentrate (since beating Northampton). Part of my role is making sure the players and even some of the staff understand how big the league is for us,” he said.
“This FA Cup run is a bonus. We’re under no illusions – we’re probably not going to win the FA Cup, but (getting) as far as we can get would be good.
“We’re going for the win. We’ve done our homework on Doncaster, we know how they play, we know who their dangermen are. The pitch is not the greatest and it’s not going to be comfortable for them, by any means.”
The game against Doncaster (Sunday, 1 December, 12:00 KO) in front of what will be a record crowd at their current Latimer Park home, will be televised live on the BBC.
And Forde is hopeful there will be no issues following Storm Bert, which led to flooding in some parts of the county.
He added: “It was cutting up a little bit on Saturday. But it’s been fine since then and there’s not going to be anything on there. We’ve stopped the Under-18s and other fixtures and we’re gearing up for the big game on Sunday.
“It should be fine, the weather forecast looks good, so fingers crossed.”
Kyren Wilson and Fabian Forde were speaking to BBC Radio Northampton’s Chance Litchfield