The Origins of Muppetry

This is to be a series of exposés documenting the, at times, quite unbelievable tales of Kendal Celtic otherwise know as The Muppets.

In this first episode we’ll unearth the very beginnings of, what could quite honestly be the stupidest group of footballing folk to walk the planet.

The dye is cast

When you look at the history of this Club it’s not too difficult to see how Kendal Celtic have ended up as they are!

The very first meeting, in which the committee was organized, gives us some insight. The meeting took place in “local” Les Brown’s house. In attendance was, Andrew “does my bum look big in this” Bunn, Kyle “chocolate fingers” Dixon, Mel “he’s behind you” Hawker, Buzz “i’m not going in the shower with Terry Hunte” Burrows, Kevin “keep it tight” Baldwin, to name a few.

The committee was formed, Les was to be manager, Bunny his assistant, Kyle, treasurer and Mel took the secretary’s post. Buzz had secured £1000 sponsorship from the Firm. Brilliant!!
Well, not quite. Oh they got the Club off the ground okay, pitch sorted, training planned with a Dave “mind games” Noble. Only problem was Les never actually took charge of the team and resigned before the season kicked off!! He didn’t see them play or pick a team, Fingers decided he didn’t want to be treasurer after all. At the signing on, held in the Kendal cricket club, Dave “give us ya f***ing money” Stones was co-opted as treasurer simply because he worked in a bank!
But still we were ok; Bunny became manager, Kev was his assistant, we’d a new money man and he’d £1000 sponsorship money to guard.

Well no, not quite. You see Buzz had forgotten to ask the Firm to put the money up, so a grand became £750, then £500. In the end Buzz put £250 up that he’d won on a fruit machine!
But still we were up and running and the team had a few decent friendlys sorted, one of those was against Shap. This was where the Muppet tag was issued and quite frankly stuck.

In those days Kendal Celtic had one of the daftest back lines in the Westmorland league. Dave Stones, with the likes of Boycie ready to step in as left back or left wing, and Mal “the Cigar” Reekie, Mark Kelse, Si Walling, and Marshy, otherwise known as Ronnie and Reggie (I swear Marshy used to play in an overcoat!) made up the defensive options.

Shap have never been a team to shirk a challenge, and playing up front for them was one of the youngest veterans in the league, Darren “clean shirt” Woofe. He later graced the hoops for two seasons.

Anyway, on one Shap attack there was a predictable scale up in the Celtic goal mouth. Si Walling had got in a tangle with Woofie, the ball smacked Si on the head and bounced out of play. Si, probably not knowing any better, called for a goal kick, to which Woofie told him, quite squarely what a Muppet he was. In fact what a bunch of Muppets we all were, and who could argue with logic like that, so we agreed with him, and it duly stuck.

So onto Kendal Celtic’s first ever league game. August 2001 at Endmoor KGR. An historic event, Association Football was never going to be the same again, and everything was going to be great.
Well no, not quite;

The club photographer was there Garth “look at the size of that” Hamer and the team formed up for the first ever team photo. We were all on it, except for Buzz, who was still busy getting changed!
The coin was tossed. Kev won the toss and elected to kick into the blazing sunshine! What a Muppet! 5 minutes into the action, and Stoney drops his wallet on his left foot, so off he goes.
Anyway, the action moves to the Shady part of the ground and Simon Chapman (remember the name for later episodes) takes a long throw in for Danny Collins (definitely don’t forget his name for future episodes) to head in Celtic first ever goal, Elation! What can possibly go wrong now? It’s all going to be ok in the end.

No, not quite. You see despite a spirited performance Endmoor had moved into a 2 - 1 lead. In the team that day the Celts had other such intellectual luminaries as Steven Milburn (this is the man who signed on as Steven but spells his name Stephen, I kid you not), John Chapman, Mark Kelse, and Mal Reekie! Now Mal isn’t thick he’s just as daft as a brush, and if I tell you he’s related to the present Scotland rugby union captain, and outstanding goal kicker Chris Paterson, what happened next might give some insight into his general psyche. Mal was always a shoot on sight footballer 30, 40, 50 yards out it didn’t matter to him, some of his efforts would be roundly appreciated by his famous relative!

So to the game, Endmoor have the ball, on the Celtic left 40 yards out, Mal takes possession of the ball, and unleashes the most venomous shot I’ve honestly ever seen…..towards his own goal!! The ball never got above or below 6” from the ground and rifles into the corner of the net! John Chapman is still diving for it now 5 years on. It was simply the most stunning own goal I’ve ever seen! For the record the final score of that first ever game was 3 - 2 to Endmoor.
So that is the first taster of the art of Muppetry. If I tell you that we held our first ever end of season presentation do in the Chinese - well I’m sure you’ve got the gist.

In future episodes I’m going to tell you about “chappies pants, the windmill years”, I’m going to give you an insight into the Women folk who surround the club, the one liners, where you can stick £46 quid’s worth of unleaded petrol, what to do if you need a piss in the middle of the night and can’t be arsed to got to the bog, and finally un-earth the mystery of why Millie wears two pairs of socks when he goes out! And many, many more.