The actual football action saw City start brightly and with just four minutes gone they looked to have earned a penalty. The move that ended with Paul Milsom being pulled to the ground by defender Hughes began with Foster mis-hitting a Williams cross towards Gary Powell. He flicked it on to Milsom who was felled, but to the disbelief of the City players the referee waved play-on. And just to prove he could be incompetent in a variety of situations five minutes later Mr Hawkes was at it again. Poppies keeper Bowling came out to collect a pass aimed at Foster and having gathered it continued to hold the ball a foot outside his box. A free-kick was awarded but the referee failed to even talk to the keeper let alone give either of his cards an airing. Although bizarrely a few minutes later he did talk to the keeper during a stoppage in play but as to why was anyone's guess. The visitors first threat to City's goal saw Powell clear Watkin's overhead effort from off the line. City replied with a Foster header that Bowling saved well and a Williams shot that flew narrowly wide. The referee's decision not to caution Bowling appeared to mean every other challenge from then on resulted in a booking. City's Harvey and Zabek plus Kettering's Watkins and Matthews all went into the book in quick succession for fairly innoculous challenges. And this became more serious for City when Harvey committed a foul that did warrant a booking. Before the interval Kemp's header from a Williams corner almost gave City the lead, Piercewright clearing it off his own line.

The second half saw City adopt a positive 3-4-2 formation, clearly sensing that despite their man advantage Kettering looked far from a side capable of returning to the Conference at the first time of asking. While City were creating little in the way of goalscoring openings, Hunt's quickly taken free-kick that curled two yards wide their closest threat during the first 30 minutes of the second period, the Poppies looked equally deviod of attacking ideas. And even when they did breach City's back line they found Hervin in excellent form, first blocking Watkin's shot after the striker had ran clear on goal and then producing a stunning point-blank save from Shutt. However, with fourteen minutes remaining a single mistake by the otherwise superb Kemp gifted Kettering the winning goal. His attempted headed clearance was instead directed back toward Hervin's goal and when Watkins beat the keeper to the ball he squared it to Butcher who had the simplest of tap-ins. Bravely City tried to find a way back into the match and as it reached it's closing moments seemed to capable of nicking an equaliser against a nervy looking opponent. Unfortunately, Mr Hawkins had other ideas as shortly after Thorne had hooked Thomas' deflected effort wide he decided it was too cold to bother with stoppage time and ended the game exactly on 45 minutes.