Sport
The multi-purpose sports and business facility at the Kettering Conference Centre provides both a leisure centre, health club, children's activity and conference centre all in one venue. It is also the home to Volleyball England's National Volleyball Centre.
- Football
Kettering was home to Kettering Town F.C. The current Chairman Imraan Ladak installed former Tamworth manager Mark Cooper as the new Kettering Town supremo for the 2007-08 season. After a record breaking start to the season (7 consecutive wins), the club held pole position virtually all season, winning the Blue Square North with 5 games in hand. The Poppies broke their win record of 28 games, now 30 and registered a record points tally for the Division of 96 points. Kettering Town play in the Blue Square Premier. Mark Cooper joined Peterborough United Manager in November 2009 with Goalkeeper Lee Harper taking over as he was the most experienced player. However, as of 2011, the club moved out of the borough to Nene Park, Irthlingborough - the former ground of defunct rivals Rushden & Diamonds. The move was necessitated by the approaching end of the lease at their old ground at Rockingham Road, Kettering. Mark Cooper returned as caretaker manager until the end of the current (2011–2012) season on 4 January 2012. He replaced former manager Mark Stimson.
- Rugby
Kettering is home to Kettering Rugby Football Club (KRFC), located in Waverley Road on the eastern side of the town. The earliest available records indicate that the playing of Rugby Football in Kettering was initiated by the Rector of Barton Seagrave village in 1871. After a period of playing under Uppingham Public School Rules the club formally adopted RFU rules in 1875 and quickly became a significant participant in both the local community and the fast-developing Rugby scene in the East Midlands. In the early days games were played on a number of sites including farmers' fields and council-owned grounds. It was during this period, prior to adopting a home of their own, that the club developed its high profile in the town. Social occasions and players "meetings" were held traditionally at the Royal Hotel, later moving to the George, with more formal occasions such as the Annual Ball becoming the highlight of the local function calendar. KRFC currently plays in the Midlands 1st Division.
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Famous quotes containing the word sport:
“Sweet Auburn, loveliest village of the plain,
Where health and plenty cheered the labouring swain,
Where smiling spring its earliest visit paid,
And parting summer’s lingering blooms delayed,
Dear lovely bowers of innocence and ease,
Seats of my youth, when every sport could please,
How often have I loitered o’er the green,
Where humble happiness endeared each scene.”
—Oliver Goldsmith (1730?–1774)
“Every American travelling in England gets his own individual sport out of the toy passenger and freight trains and the tiny locomotives, with their faint, indignant, tiny whistle. Especially in western England one wonders how the business of a nation can possibly be carried on by means so insufficient.”
—Willa Cather (1876–1947)