Marked for Conor McCarthy
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Player ratings28 Sep 2026
Successful dribbles: 26. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Squad28 Sep 2026
Sam Hoskins was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Squad28 Sep 2026
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Kyle McAdam is 21, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Player ratings28 Sep 2026
Ninety minutes of Armando Shashoua at his very best
Marked 8.03. Players have careers without a single afternoon like this in them, and he has just had one in front of everybody at Northampton Town.
Squad28 Sep 2026
“Nobody here is above being told.” It was not said with a name attached, but the dressing room can count, and so can everybody who was listening.
Match26 Sep 2026
A 1‑1 draw with Burton Albion leaves the dressing room somewhere between relief and regret.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Market7 Sep 2026
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at Northampton Town, and it is not being withdrawn.
Match5 Sep 2026
The run now stands at 4, and the questions being asked around Northampton Town are no longer polite ones.
Match5 Sep 2026
The chances are being made and something is happening between the making and the finishing. 4 matches now, and the anxiety in the ground arrives a little earlier every week.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Tom Eaves in a row with a teammate
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Northampton Town this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Market7 Sep 2026
The name of James Dadge has come up in conversations Northampton Town were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Tyrese Fornah falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
Player ratings7 Sep 2026
Successful dribbles: 17. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad7 Sep 2026
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Dean Campbell, and the manager let it.
Market7 Sep 2026
“We are a long way apart, and pretending otherwise helps nobody.” Neither side is close, and the calendar is not on the club's side.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Market17 Aug 2026
The bid was some way short and Northampton Town did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
Squad17 Aug 2026
Elliott List was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Boardroom17 Aug 2026
1 academy players handed senior numbers at Northampton Town
The morning the pathway stops being a brochure and becomes a team sheet. Most of them will not be here in three years; all of them have already done the hard part, which was getting to today.
Player ratings17 Aug 2026
Successful dribbles: 19. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Market17 Aug 2026
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Jonathan Dixon has been at this club since he was a boy and is now, formally, one of the first-team squad — which for a local readership beats any signing of any size.
Match15 Aug 2026
0‑1 to Mansfield Town, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
Squad17 Aug 2026
5 new faces, and Northampton Town are still learning each other
A squad rebuilt inside one window pays for it in a currency nobody budgets for. The football is not worse than the sum of the players; it is worse than the sum of the players who have played together before.
Squad17 Aug 2026
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Conor McCarthy, and the manager let it.