Boston United v Harrogate Town

Boston United 3-3 Harrogate Town

Tuesday 10th November 2015

Conference North

Attendance: 1074 (Approx 40 away)

Admission: £9 (Student)

As many of you will be aware, I have recently joined Leicester University to embark on a Contemporary History degree. As part of one of my modules, I have been permitted to survey rustic, traditional football grounds that are on their last legs in order to investigate the socioeconomic reasoning that encourages football clubs to decentralize from their traditional homes in order to pursue plush new facilities further afield. As part of this case study, I was enabled and funded to examine the case of Boston United and their soon-to-cease York Street home.

Not really. The simple reality is just plainly that I am a sad cunt. A sad cunt who deems it appropriate to travel for 2 and a half hours (each way) to watch a game of football he has absolutely no interest in the outcome of in (quite frankly) a sport that he harbours scant warmth for nowadays.

It’s difficult for me to explain and articulate in a way that anyone sane-minded can resonate with. Even I impose a stigma upon myself imploring a justification why I feel compelled to undergo measures to watch games that have absolutely no bearing on me.  It must be quite traumatic for my parents to foster the dawning realization that they have raised a son who tallies and charts an extensive list of football grounds he has visited in a meticulously nerdy manner. They’re probably longing for the day where I update them about a nice lass I’ve starting dating, rather than informing them I’ve just spent the day travelling to Burslem to watch Port Vale vs Scunthorpe United.

Alas, I am what I am. And the unfathomable delight that is visiting new stadiums still unleashes this strange, intense schoolboy excitement within myself. I am a fucking loser, yes. But more to the point.

Since moving to Leicester for my degree a pool of new groundhopping opportunities has arisen; with much of the Midlands still unseen territory for me. Unfortunately since gaining a store transfer I’ve been scheduled to work every other Saturday and every Sunday, thus my scope for anorak weirdness has been limited somewhat. Therefore I’ve been seeking out midweek opportunities when available, although the awful, irregular nature of the train network here again impacts my breadth of choices.

Surprisingly, Boston United v Harrogate Town was one of them. In spite of its (relative) geographical isolation, it would only cost £15 for a return and I’d be able to get back to Leicester in time, and at worse, if stranded in Nottingham, have the fall-back of joining my mate (who studies at Trent University) on his night out. I delegated my deliberated on my decision to attend and only proceeded with the plan on early afternoon of the day after a few lunchtime pints; swayed by having read on footballgroundguide.co.uk that the lease for their York Street home runs out in 2018, the club having gained planning permission for a reduced capacity ground elsewhere. This was a fundamental factor for me – so many a time have I looked back on images of grounds like Highbury, Filbert Street, The Vetch, Bootherry Park, Saltergate et al and pondered “I wish I’d had the chance to have visited there”. While Boston United and York Street hardly have the same element of importance as some of those venues in footballing context, they’re still a relatively proper club with an actual fanbase; a football league club as recently as 2007. 

They’ve remained a Conference North club since their financially related demotion amid their FL exit; never seeming to seriously threatening to elevate themselves to the level a club of their stature should be nestling. Therefore I wasn’t prepared to wait for the opportunity to visit York Street through Dover Athletic.

We have played the Pilgrims in my lifetime. The 2001/2002 campaign was the last time our club locked horns, whereby we finished at polar opposites of the spectrum. Their STEVE EVANS’ led side eventually won the league title having controversially pipped Dagenham & Redbridge to the summit amid the use of EVANS’ brown envelopes, meanwhile, the Whites finished bottom of the pile, initiating the first of three relegation within four seasons. One of the very few highlights of that season was a rare elusive home win against EVANS’ side, a game which I have watched a dozen times over on DVD despite not even following the club back then! The scenes when Thomas Tyne prodded us a winner with the last kick of the ball, having been 2-1 down with 15 minutes to go, are still a sheer delight to behold.

Anyway;  back on topic. Boston. Yeah. Smooth, uninterrupted journey there, thankfully (although the train is excruciatingly slow and calls at a vast array of nondescript stations where nobody gets on and off. And Grantham. Margaret Thatcher was born there apparently. A baker’s daughter or summat). Did a fair bit of Korean War reading. Peter Lowe’s ‘The Origins Of The Korean War’ since you asked.  Very interesting background context provided for the Japanese annexation, its subsequent decolonization, plus the ensuing ideological willy-waving between USSR/USA that had indefinitely split apart a very proud country. Very interesting conflict with traumatic consequences which is largely rendered as a little more than a footnote in the wider context of the Cold War. Glad I’m choosing to write my assignment on it. Long journeys are beneficial for forcing yourself to study, I guess.

Upon arriving, I had over an hour to kill so naturally I popped into a couple of watering holes, plus utilized a much needed KFC fuelling in between (couldn’t find a traditional chippy around anywhere – honestly).  My observation of my scarce snapshot of Boston is that it seemed pleasant with a neatly preserved traditional town square with a quaint bridge connecting over the river that runs through the stadt. I’d like to further investigate on a full away day in the future. Both pubs were really decent, featuring a vast array of Castle Rock/Batemans beers – the two Lincolnshire breweries that conjure up some fine beers between ‘em. My mantra is “you know you’re in the north of England when you can still get a pint for under £3”.

I headed to the stadium about 10 minutes prior to kick off, located just adjacent to the town centre. It’s literally about a 10-15 walk from the station to the ground via the town which again solidifies its potential for away day brilliance.

I envisaged from the outset from the smattering of images I had seen that I’d thoroughly enjoy this stadium would and boy, it did not disappoint. In fact you can immediately elevate to one of my favourites in the English lower leagues. Visually it is totally sexual and I think extra gloss was added by the factor of it being played under floodlights. My one qualm about the York Street is that you’re not freely allowed to move around from stand to stand – they’re perennial regionalised league merchants these days and thus they should adapt to their climate. But that was only a minor irk. This was a quintessiesantially proper ground, with four enclosed, individual stands. I stood on the huge terrace behind the goal -  not through choice, more as a result of it being the closest too me. This must be one of the largest remaining actively used terraces in the country. Proper Kop. It’s absolutely caked in pheasant excrement though – you’d think that somebody would have the initiative to give it a wash once in a while! Despite the stand’s vast volume and available space it was a tough task to find a spot where I could rest my arms on a barricade not overloaded with the white stuff!

Very UKIP-like with the Union Jack present. Unsurprisingly, Boston's constituency did attain a high level of the party's votes.

To the left of my view was the main seated stand, a beautifully rustic one complete with supporting pillars to boot, featuring the dugouts right in front of them. Opposite it is a small covered terrace extending the entire pitch side; its roof low enough to probably ensure the street of houses directly behind it can get a good view of the game from their windows. But it’s the stand at the other side of the stadium that is really most peculiar – its idiosyncratic feature being raised about 3 metres above pitch level with a tightly compact roof – mean staircases are necessary to reach its three or four rows of benching. At the bottom is a small uncovered terrace and what appears to be a temporary small block of seating nestling ahead of it. It’s an odd one but completes the vast character of the ground. The away army of Harrogate fans were congregated here; I assume by the bureaucracy of segregation rather than through choice but who knows.

Normally I hate non-league football and the clichéd nonsense that is espoused regarding it (usually patronizing ill-informed generalizations spewed by outsiders whom commend it for being “real football being played by real men for the love of the game” and other such bollocks). Non-League football is fundamentally a substandard level of the game made up of ex-pro dropouts and money grabbing mercenaries (much like any other level). Nonetheless, if the stereotype of non-league football being exciting does amount to anything more than fiction, this game would be a poignant supporting case.

This was truly an excellent, blustering, end-to-end game of football, crammed with several clear chances and important incidents. I’ve been to a few premier league games over the preceding month with a few Championship games in between – this game easily surpassed any of those in terms of excitement – and the standard and style of football was pretty eye-pleasing as well. A glance at the league table beforehand indicated the gung-ho nature of Boston United’s play, their ‘for’ and ‘against’ columns both bulky in stature, bolstered somewhat by a 3-4 defeat at North Ferriby in their previous outing. For once at a game I’d be attending as a neutral, the game would follow the laws of of rational expectation.

Impeccably observed minute's silence in honour of a recently passed on season ticket holder. RIP. 

Harrogate certainly played the most attractive, on the-floor, swift-paced football though, and by the time they did make the breakthrough on just 10 minutes, they could have already been a few goals up. Boston would have certainly been tearing their hair out at the manner in they conceded, a tame header unopposed crept in courtesy of some poor positional sense of their goalkeeper.

This set-back did not provoke a lively response from the home side, however, with Harrogate continuing to press. An attempt from 25 yards was drilled narrowly wide and they really should have doubled their lead when an attacker had two bites of the cherry from close range; his first well saved, his follow-up arrowed emphatically wide.

Towards the end of the half though Boston emerged more spirited and conjured up an equaliser just before the break. Paradoxically, for a game where for a change, most of the better football was being deployed on the floor, they too found the net via the means of a set-piece. A long range free kick was floated into the back of the box and nodded across the area by their marvellously long-haired *Italian defender, which was promptly followed by a well-directed nod into the bottom right corner.  

*he’s actually born in Peterborough but his surname is Piergianni.

If the first-half had been a frantic, open football feast, its follow-up would be even more compulsive. Boston imposed themselves quickly out of the blocks, testing the Harrogate goalkeeper twice within the first 5 minutes of the restart. However, Harrogate, now attacking towards the home terrace, soon re-established their lead, which was suitably achieved through the means of normalized route one, non league football. Their goalkeeper booted the ball deep into the Boston half, which was promptly flicked on, leaving Piergianni to be outpaced on the turn and leave the Harrogate attacker to deftly float the ball past the onrushing Boston goalkeeper.

Barely a few minutes later Piergianni was nearly responsible for yet another Harrogate goal. With their attacker having just slid a ball through to a supporting team mate on the overlap, Piergianni was deemed to have impeded his ensuing run and the referee pointed to the spot – somewhat softly IMO. But he needn’t have dwelled too much – Boston’s goalkeeper triumphantly dived to his right to prevent an extension to their lead.

He steps up....

....It's saved!

Instead the luscious haired Italian prince would be making amends at the other end almost immediately. He used his canister to nod in from close-range after Harrogate defenders failed to deal with a menacing cross. 2-2.

Would this give Boston the impetus to push on and seek out a winner? No! Only as quickly as they had tied the scores they fell behind yet again. This time it was the making of their own doing. Buoyant from their equaliser, they pushed plenty of men forward only to sloppily give away possession just inside the Harrogate half. Harrogate, with four men pushed forward, broke away at startling speed. Barely 10 seconds after they had regained possession the ball had hit the back of the net. A lethal, impressive counter attack was capped off with a smart finish through the Boston keeper’s legs. What was less impressive was the goalscorer celebrating his goal by standing in front of the Boston fans to openly goad them, in an even more antagonistic manner than the previous goalscorer had done. I have absolutely idea if there is any pretext to warrant such transparent levels of incitement – if there has been previous between the two clubs then maybe there could be an element of justification behind acting like a knob – but on the surface this just appeared a case of being a bellend for the sake of being a bellend.

In this space crazy spell of eleven minutes we had been treated to a total of three goals and an heroic penalty save. In the proceeding time where I unfortunately had to leave this unsolved game on 82 minutes to catch the last train back to Nottingham, there had been no more goals, though the intention of both sides to attack at all costs continued to be potently evident. I’ve never been more aggrieved to have to set off before the end of a match and miss out on its conclusion.

Luckily I wouldn’t miss out on much. Only a third and final Boston equalizer, naturally immediately occurring after I’d exited the stadium. Looked a bloody good goal on the highlights as well. Then of course Boston would only hit the post from 8 yards out and Harrogate only had a one-on-one dramatically kept out in the dying stages. So yeah, a turgid climax to a boring game.

I jest, but as annoying as it were, I was satisfied - I had garnered more enjoyment out from the 80 minutes or so of this game I had witnessed than I had done from the 180+ minutes combined that I endured at Pride Park and Npower Stadium recently. (On a footballing basis at least). But the atmosphere and ambiance weren’t too bad for this one either; a healthy four figure gate on a Tuesday night. Harrogate’s legion of around 40 away travelling fans were genuinely been one of the best sets of supporters I have encountered in a while. Given my previous understanding of the town is that it is just a posh, tory suburb of Leeds, I wasn’t expecting anything in terms of numbers or indeed noise. But to the contrary they were excellent – albeit somewhat tinpot with the use of a drum – but they were totally constant throughout the evening and made themselves predominantly heard despite their numerical deficiencies. Their response to re-taking the lead prompted a wry chuckle from me – “you weren’t singing anyway”…. an apt uptake on the “you’re not singing anymore” ditty.

This games has provoked me to have a little re-think about non-league football, maybe to not try and immediately write it off and possibly seek out more outings to clubs within a reasonable proximity from me. Ilkeston FC is one that is really upon my hit-list, however, its train station has unfortunately not been built yet and is still subject to construction delays. Not that you can rely on public transport around here after 9pm anyway. I had to get the bus back from Derby last week because the last train was at 21:18. Madness; two cities with over half a million inhabitants between them and just 30 miles separating them. Guess I’ve been spoiled living with the vast infrastructure luxuries of the South East!

Thanks for reading, if you’ve indeed made it this far. I’m going to keep all of my future photos and blogs of new grounds on here from now on, rather than facebook so keep ya eyes peeled out if this groundhopping/away-day noncy stuff intrigues you. It’ll be seldom that I’ll be arsed to keep write them in the depth I have for this one – or indeed include write-ups at all. But they’ll be here, rest assured. I might do a bit of a backlog from this season at some point as well. A (provisional) list of planned fixtures can be viewed in my ‘Grounds Visited’ tab.

Positives:

• ·         Aesthetically-pleasing, old-school, traditional ground; visited in its terminal age, just prior to its expiration.
• ·         Rare, compelling, end-to-end, frantic game with commendable attacking intent from both sides, if somewhat lamentable defending at times.
• ·         Lovely pint of Castle Rock ‘Newark IPA’ in The Eagle, nearby the station. Good pubs, nice town, from the small scope I had seen. 

Negatives:

• ·         Nearly six hours of travelling to watch 80 minutes of non-league football; a huge dent to my self-pride and esteem.
• ·         “What the fuck is wrong me, why can’t I be normal?”
• ·         35 minute delay at Nottingham coming home. East Midlands not bothering to inform us the train driver couldn’t be arsed to show up on time, ensuring more frustration.
• ·         You’re in Lincolnshire; one of the best regions of the country for breweries. So why is the only offering in your club bar Shepherd fucking Neame’s Spitfire? I specifically moved away from Kent to avoid that filthy dishwasher-esque yeasty shite.