By Richard O Smith
As a rule we don't produce match reports in "FBYF" as this tends to somewhat clip the wings of our appeal, and renders the issues terribly dated. By any comparison, though, the game against Enfield at their Southbury Road ground was indeed a good one, culminating in a well earned 2-1 victory for Boston'.
After falling behind to an early Enfield strike when their forward was able to smartly return a rebound goalwards, following McKenna's save which equal 1ed Gordon Banks's famous save against Brazil in the 1970 Mexico World Cup (we're allowed some licence at these prices), mercifully it was not too long before the referee awarded the Pilgrims a penalty for a handball that was so obvious both linesmen probably flagged for it.
Shortly after Stewart Hamill had converted the penalty, Glenn Beech slotted one home into the goal which seemed to be growing bigger by the minute. And why didn't our supporters' coaches arrive until 7.29 pm? Such was our authority on the proceedings that when Enfield introduced a substitute the referee chose to ignore our shouts of "let Enfield keep them both on."
Afterwards Simpson, Cook and Wilson managed to find ingenious ways of missing open goals, we then hit the post more times than a fence builder, and that was it really except for the usual panic at the end.
Countless is the only word left to describe the amount of times Boston have found themselves going into the last five minutes of a game defending a lead of only one goal because of deplorable finishing, and just end up going to pieces because of sheer panic.
Thankfully on this occasion the Pilgrims held up, but they knew the game should have been all over before the team coach arrived. Originally it was intended to produce this issue with fifteen informed well put together pages, and then fill up the last page with scribbling and illiterate blots, as we impersonated how Boston United would write a fanzine. Pleasantly surprising was the amount of supporters Boston brought; the fact that a non-league side can bring 250 supporters 120 miles for a night match shows the commitment and pulling power of our support.
Regrettably Enfield attract very small crowds indeed, somewhere in the 700's and 800's sadly being the norm. The question must remain why Enfield are always amongst the worst three or four supported clubs in the Conference when one considers the sheer amount of trophies they have harvested in recent years: twice F.A, Trophy winners, twice Conference champions, and a former leading light and once winner of the old F.A. Amateur Cup, a competition we have nowadays lamentable waved goodbye to. The population of Enfield is quarter of a million people and they get attendances of 700. The population of Boston is 26,000 and we get 2,700. Easy to draw your own conclusions isn't it?
Like nearly all the grounds in the GMVC, and the non-league in general, you can safely wear your scarves, cheer for your team and enjoy a talk with several of the other side's supporters - the ratio of friendly locals to pieces of rubbish chanting "we hate Boston" is thankfully about 50 to 1.
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All content copyright Richard O. Smith 1988-2002