Here is the rebuttal—it is kinda technical—bottom line is they lied:
https://www.aulis.com/PDF/lunar_ranging2.pdf
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kettering_Grammar_School
Space Research
EXCERPTS
In the 1960s, Geoffrey Perry, head of the school Physics department experimented with using satellite signals and the Doppler effect as an aid to teaching. The activity soon grew into regular monitoring of Soviet launched satellites and expanded into an international collaboration that became known as the Kettering Group.
In 1966 the project went international when Swedish student Sven Grahn contacted the group with a recording of the signals from Kosmos 104.
The same year it discovered Soviet launches from Plesetsk Cosmodrome, officially unacknowledged until 1983.
In 1969, a group used simple radio equipment to monitor the Apollo 11 mission and calculated its orbits.
According to the group, in December 1972 a member "pick[ed] up Apollo 17 on its way to the Moon".