Northamptonshire Combination League

Division 1

Tuesday 18th August 2026

Kick Off 18.30 Actual 18.32

West Haddon Albion 3 Kingsthorpe Jets 1, attendance 36

12’ 0-1

29’ 1-1

37’ 2-1 (pen)

43’ 3-1

@ West Haddon Playing Field

Northampton Road

West Haddon

NN6 7AR

No Admission or Programme.

Tonight was a trip to a game in the second level of the Northants Combination. West Haddon is a village about five miles east of M1 Junction 18, with the ground on the left hand side of Northampton Road when heading eastwards out of the village. It’s also home to the cricket club, with the changing rooms doubling as the cricket pavilion, whilst the football pitch is to the right of the driveway as you enter, basically in the adjacent field. It’s just an open pitch, with three small sized youth pitches beyond the far touchline and a small changing room building in the right hand corner that serves the junior sides. As with every grass pitch currently, it was bone dry and straw coloured, but at least it was flat and not a dust bowl.

West Haddon had opened up their season with a 2-0 defeat at Corby Rovers, whilst Kingsthorpe Jets had lost 2-3 at home to Brixworth All Saints in their opener, so both came into this looking to get their first points on the board. Kingsthorpe took a twelfth minute lead, when a through ball saw the ‘keeper save the initial shot, but the follow up volley gave him no chance. They missed two absolute sitters, which could have sewn the game up in the opening twenty minutes, before West Haddon equalised just before the half hour mark, when a ball pulled back across the box was volleyed in from six yards. Eight minutes later the hosts edged in front, scoring with a penalty that was awarded for a handball. Two minutes before halftime they made it 3-1, when an in swinging corner from the right was headed off the line but met with a header from 6 yards that gave the ‘keeper no chance. The second half lacked the goalmouth action of the first, with the best chance seeing Kingsthorpe hit the crossbar with a 25 yarder in the dying minutes.

Journey north was fine, apart from slow moving traffic on the M25 from J14 for a couple of miles beyond the M4 intersection. Return journey saw no problems whatsoever, being too early for any roadworks to kick in and home just before ten o’clock.