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Boston 0


Nantwich: Jones, Beeson, Tinson, O’Loughlin, Dave Tickle, Carter, MacPherson, Blackhurst, Jack, Walker, Lennon.
Subs: Parkinson, Whittaker, Hawthorne, Griggs, Kinsey.

Boston: Butcher, Matthews, L. Parker, Millson, Ellender, Bloomer, Sedgemore, Melton, Farrell, Froggatt, Miller.
Subs: Clarke, Griffiths, Wood, Jackson, Green.

Att: 514

Wotcha. It’s only been about a year since the last time we did one of these min-by-min updates, but since the Beeb are off on a merry jaunt covering the game live from Nantwich it would be rude not to take advantage, nick their coverage, blow away the cob-webs and gift the site its one and only min-by-min of what has been - let’s be honest - a terrible, shocking, disgraceful and pathetically abject 08/09 season.

This season has been bad on many, many levels. It should not, therefore, come as much of a shock that what little drama remained as United sought to retain their NPL status ebbed away yesterday when it emerged that Cammell Laird would be demoted at the end of the season for failing to bring their ground up to scratch. As the victims of about 52 demotions in the last two weeks, we should sympathise with their plight. But rules is rules, and if we got booted down for breaking some, so should they. Naturally, they’ve appealed, and it will probably take the panel of NPL blazers at least a dozen buffets to finally make up their mind, but given the spate of demotions and deductions over the last couple of years up and down the pyramid, Lairdians probably shouldn’t get their hopes up.

And so, to tonight. Boston need a win, or a point combined with a partial eclipse of the moon or something, to guarantee safety regardless of what our fellow NPL brethren do, but picking points up at the home of the club that so emphatically bum-shafted the Pilgrims earlier in the season is not going to be easy. Despite a recent resurgence in form, United looked laboured at the weekend, although that was probably because they were being irradiated by Ossett’s forest of microwave mobile masts*.

Aside from The Frog’s tame header clunking against the post, United created very little against a limited side reduced to ten men, and if you were being pessimistic, that might be a cause for concern this evening. We’ll post the teams just as soon as we can copy and paste them from elsewhere. Meanwhile, we’ll be doing another end-of-season round up on the main site at some point in the next few weeks, so if you wish to share your favourite away day of the season/least favourite ground/most obnoxious fan encountered, please do e-mail us - please - and join in with the not-so-grand finale to a desperately disappointing ten months of pretty god-awful football.

Predictions? Well, all good things come to an end. And we’re miserable. So, Nantwich 2, United 0.

*DISCLAIMER - the physical effects of microwave radiation associated with the use of mobile phones remains a contentious issue between researchers and scientists around the world, depending on who actually funds the scientists. impsTALK wishes to make it perfectly clear that it does not know for a FACT that the prolonged use of mobile phones leads to cancerous growths in the head-noggin

Links
Nantwich Official Site
Nantwich forum
impsTALK’s Nantwich Rough Guide

7.35pm - Andrew Stanhope is sounding remarkably confident, telling the BBC: “We’re DEFINITELY going to turn over Nantwich tonight. We’ll get the result. DEFINITELY.”

We paraphrase, of course, but that was pretty much the jist of it. Hope that one doesn’t come back to haunt him.

7.40pm - First e-mail of the night arrives from Adam Upsall, who shows up in timely fashion to mock Nantwich's badge.

"Nantwich must be the side with the worst badge we have played this season?" he chuckles. "I mean, come on, its a poor man's old school Newcastle one - and who wants to be anything like them?

Hmmm. Thoughts?


7.45pm - The teams are out on the pitch and lining up to shake hands. Because that absolutely reduces the number of two-footed death lunges and verbal assaults on the referees.

7.47pm - Peeep! Nantwich kick off, and we're underway. Froggatt immediately collects a loose ball and punts in a decent cross that is scrambled away for a corner, from which United produce a spell of concerted pressure on the Nantwich goal. Decent start.

2 mins - "Nantwich look like they're going to be playing football tonight," exclaims Dalton. His surprise is understandable given some of the shit we've had to endure this season. From Boston, mainly. Then Miller squares up to a defender. Shock!

5 mins - "After five minutes of squinting at Nantwich's badge I discovered that it looks like a cartoon jester," Pat proclaims. Before slightly backtracking: "Sort of. See it?"

7 mins - GOAL! Nantwich 1, Boston 0 - What the fuck is all this about? I thought Stanhope said we were definitely going to win? Lennon surges forward dangerously, but Tom Matthews clears well, only for Blackhurst to come crashing back with seconds. His shot is parried by Butcher and the loose ball is prodded in by Lennon. Arse.

10 mins - HOW DIDN'T NANTWICH SCORE THAT? Boston play the offside trap, but forget to tell Bloomer, who plays that man Lennon onside. His shot crashes off the bar, and after a decent start, Boston could quite easily be two down.

12 mins - Adam Upsall's back with some news about Boston's disciplinary record. "Did you know that we could get £1,000 for topping the Unibond fair play league?" he asks. "Thank God Miller is suspended for Saturday as nearly getting a booking tonight already shows he may keep us up but at what cost!"

Adam has also kindly provided the current fair play standings, which you can read, er, HERE

15 mins - Phew! Lennon has the ball in the back of the net, the Nantwich crowd cheer - but the linesman's flag is raised.

19 mins - Uh-Oh. Millson's crocked and his lifeless body is dragged from the pitch by KC. Clarke jogs on to replace him. It doesn't look good for Millson's chance to make the Saturday game against whoever it is we're playing.

22 mins - Bit of a lull in proceedings, during which attention turns to how Boston have turned around what looked, post-Kendal, a desperate situation. "Ellender," Cookie declares. Can't argue with that.

25 mins - CHANCE! A low ball across the face of the goal is fumbled by Butcher and Bloomer almost bundles it into his own new, but the ball is scrambled clear. United, it must be said, should probably be further behind.

28 mins - Upsall's back! "I think it's safe to say we will be listening as intently to the news from the next league meeting regarding Laird as we are this commentary," he says, referring to Laird's demotion from the NPL. "Fecking Boston United eh?" Well, you say that Adam, but would you really want it any other way? REALLY?

30 mins - Why hasn't Ricky Miller scored yet? Or, at the very least, kicked someone in the face? Very disappointing.

32 mins - "Sorry Pat," says SoCalled, preparing to disagree with Pat's assertion that the Nantwich badge looks like a jester's hat. "Don't see it.  Not even sort of.  Now, its perhaps because I am still working (yes, I know) and haven't yet had us tea.... but it reminded me of the Trio advert and a cartoon tonsil. Which, while I am on the subject of food.... did you realise Nantwich is (apparently) dubbed "the Gourmet Capital of England's North West"?  I shit you not. I should eat. Or actually do some work (for which I am currently being paid)."

33 mins - GOAL! Nantwich 2, Boston 0 - Dave Walker slams home a ball flicked on from the near post following a Nantwich corner. Bloody. Hell. Looking like a long way back for Boston now. Was Stan not touching wood when he said we'd definitely win?

34 mins - CHANCE! From Nantwich's FOURTH corner of the night, Tom Matthews clears off the line and boots the ball out for their FIFTH. Hmmm.

36 mins - Well, I wonder how Welsh is going to try and turn this around without hiring a Serbian hit-man to ensure Lennon has, erm, an 'accident' at half-time?

40 mins - The good news is that Gray's George Beavan has put his team 1-0 against Crawley Town.......what?

43 mins - 796th corner of the night for the dominant home side, but this time it's cleared away.

44 mins - Hasn't Miller even been booked? What the fuck is he playing at?

45 mins - Injury time is being played, Farrell flies forward and skips into the penalty area. Farrell is tackled by Jack, and Boston - get this! - have a corner. Can they get anything back before half-time?

45 + 2 - No.

Peeep peeeep peeeeeeep! That'll be that, then, for the first half and it ends with the home side bum-shafting Boston yet again. Either Andrew 'We're Going To Get A Result Mark My Words' Stanhope is some kind of prophetic genius, or he's just wrong.

Half-time - OOOooooh! Liverpool 0, Arsenal 1. Now then!

Half-time - "Given we have scored just 16 away goals all season I think it's time to just ensure we don't concede again. The goal difference is going to be very very important come 5:45 on Saturday," says Adam. He has a valid point. Unlike Boston this evening. Boom boom. No?

Half-time - "If, assuming Lairds' appeal is successful, the final relegation place has to be decided on the last day, and we lose or draw, what will happen?" muses Patrick. "Presumably we will have the mini-awards ceremony while everybody waits for Craig Singleton to get the results from the UniBond League website and update the table to reveal our final standing?"

If Saturday is anything to go by, we'll have eights sets of contradictory results wired in from a variety of inaccurate sources before all is finally revealed and we're demoted for having six flags.

Peeep! Off we go! Can Boston get a swift goal back?

47 mins - GOAL! Nantwich 3, Boston 0 - No. No they can't In fact, they've fallen further behind, thanks to a bit more suicidal defending and a smart finish from Walker from a narrow angle, having rounded the hapless Butcher. Ah well. Crawley are still losing.

49 mins - It's fair to say that, if Boston were to pull this bastard around, Dalton's famous Southport commentary would sound like a soothing hypnosis self-help tape.

51 mins - Reading are winning at Derby. Stick that in yer pipe, Clough.

56 mins - GOAL! Nantwich 4, Boston 0 - This is rapidly turning into a big pile of steaming shit. Lennon scores yet again thanks to some defending you could only describe using frenzied hand gestures and an afternoon water-colour workshop. While Chris Cook rages in the commentary box about the shambolic defending, Welsh responds by hauling off half his team and sending some kids on.

57 mins - A fairly damning verdict from one of our moles at the match: "If Boston laid on their backs and let Nantwich perform bukkake on them, they'd put up more of a fight," says Mr G Kemsley, from Dagenham. I'm going to plead innocent ignorance here and claim I have no idea what 'bukkake' means. I'll Google it.....

60 mins - .....fucking hell. I'd better clear the internet history.

61 mins - Those subs - Bloomer was replaced by Nick Jackson, while Sedgemore made way for Mitchell Griffiths.

63 mins - "Fecking shite!" yells Adam. "Let's face it, nothing about tonight should be a shock, first decent side we have come up against in the last few weeks and BOSH. Nothing else for it, I'm off to the airport...."

64 mins - Heeeeere's Adam:


66 mins - It's quite simply unbelievable that we're having to rely on some team named after a shipbuilder failing to spend £6.37 on their ground to satisfy the inspectors to save ourselves this season. Really, even considering the behind-scenes progress and on-going issues, all of which are now-well-documented, this season has been a disgrace. An absolute fucking disgrace.

69 mins - Tonight's attendance is 514. A very decent crowd indeed. I hope Nantwich stay down this season, for purely selfish reasons. Nothing much is going on in the game, by the way, except Nantwich haven't yet made it 10-0 on aggregate.

72 mins - Trafford were leading 1-0 against Quorn in the Unibond Presidents' Cup final this evening.

75 mins - Boston make a rare foray forward, but Griffiths' cross is gathered safely by Jones. Nantwich steam down the other end immediately and...... corner!

76 mins - DISALLOWED GOAL! From the corner, Dave Whittaker heads home, only to be foiled by the linesman's frenzied flagging.

79 mins - Running the possible permutations through impsTALK's Relegation-O-METER™ has caused the 45 year old device to explode spectacularly. A bit like Fergie did at Wembley on Saturday. I just don't get it. Perhaps because I'm thick.

83 mins - Nantwich stroll forward, a bit half-arsed. Boston boot it clear, a bit half-arsed.

84 mins - ANGER! With fire in his eyes, Upsall unleashes the RAGE: "Is it me or do Cookie and Scott actually realise the situation in front of them?  Have another chuckle lads eh and lump all our fortunes on Whitby and Witton getting beat.  T I N P O T, we have to face facts."

87 mins - I really should have gone to the pub to watch the Arsenal game.

89 mins - GOAL! Nantwich 5, Boston 0 - An. Absolute. Fucking. Shambles. Butcher fails to come and collect an inswinging corner, and Kinsey, left with a free-header, promptly sends the ball flying into the United net. A disastrous result for the Pilgrims. Which is odd, because Stanhope said we were going to win. He's almost as good at predicting games as I am.

90 mins - Two minutes of injury time.....

90 + 2 - PEEEP PEEEP PEEEEEEEEEP! Well, that'll do it! And, er, there's not a huge amount you can say about that. 10-0 on aggregate over the season? Brilliant.

Full-time musings - David Newton has a very, very busy summer ahead of him. I hope Neil Kempster's got an industrial coffee machine ready, because this club, on the playing side at least, doesn't just need an overhaul - it needs tearing down and starting again. From scratch, preferably. A thoroughly deserved win for a brilliant Nantwich, and United cannot have any complaints whatsoever. Thanks for your e-mails, and see you on Saturday. Ta ra.