On 19 January 2006, NASA launched a space probe called New Horizons. Ahead of it lay a 4.7 billion mile, nine and a half year trek to Pluto - which used to be a planet until someone far more intelligent than the likes of us decided that, as spherical bodies go, it was about as important as one of those 99p beach balls in the wire racks at JJB Sports. On that same day in 2006, Mike Dobson, a plumber who lives in Boston, hopped in his van to make the two mile round trip to ASDA to purchase a pint of semi-skimmed milk. Who do you think will reach their destination first?

This lump of kitchen foil cost $650 million. That's roughly equivalent to what Boston United spunked up the wall on Ken Charlery during the Steve Evans era

NASA’s probe sailed past Mars years ago. It has already zipped through Jupiter's back yard. But Mike, at this precise moment, is still sat in a traffic jam down Sleaford Road wondering what’s causing the hold up. He's going to be there for quite some time.

Getting there by rail
If you decide to skip the delights of the A52, you may opt to take a more leisurely route to Boston: train. Good luck. Ah. The romance of rail. Where else in the world can you be mugged by a teenage gang of feral sociopaths, stabbed in the head by a mentalist because you may or may not have looked at his missus, bum-violated in the toilets by an escaped sex offender and be forced, practically at gunpoint, to part with £875.42p for the privilege? Nowhere! Well, apart from Hull, but we can pretend, as most people do, that Hull doesn't exist. And in parts of London you really are forced cough up at gunpoint, especially if you're wearing a coat, happen not to be white and are surrounded by CO19 officers. But we digress. Transport in Britain is a nightmare. We know that. Transport to and from Lincolnshire is something worse than a nightmare. Frankly, it was easier to do Workington away in the Bronze Age.		Will this collection of shitpuppets be any better than the last collection of shitpuppets? She's a beauty! A green thing sits at Grantham station. If the wind is blowing the right way, these motherfuckers can sometimes exceed 31mph

The lack of investment in basic infrastructure - and we're guessing rails are pretty important to trains - tells you everything you need to know about this particular service. Essentially, if a green square thing were to fly off a section of cracked rail and submerge itself in a drain, there's not going to be the same kind post-Hatfield wailing and gnashing of teeth.

At the time of writing, the trains depart from platform two at Nottingham station. Platform two is located as far from the main building as it is possible to go, and it's only when you arrive to catch the train that you realise why. Put in simple terms, the passengers are the kind of people who think a holiday in Skegness is an acceptable way to spend their leisure time. And they don't own cars. The sort of people, in other words, who want to go to Skegness and - get this! - who do not own a caravan. You may have thought this was impossible, but there, on platform two, it is an every day fact of life.

If there are any seats on the train, and in summer you may struggle, make sure you avoid sitting next to the customary Nottingham family comprising eight moronic kids, an obese mother telling each child in turn to 'saddahn ya little fucker or I'll crush yer fuckin' skull' and a comatose grandmother, high on morphine and awaiting the blissful sweet release of death. If you DO sit next to the family, and there is one on every single service, you too will soon be praying for immediate death to take you to a better, and presumably much quieter place. Unless you have a one-way ticket to Hell, in which case you'll end up dumped by Satan himself outside the Isaac Newton Shopping Centre in, yep, Grantham.

Nine hours later, depending on a number of variables, you may or may not arrive in Boston. Head immediately to The Eagle pub and drink yourself silly. You deserve it.

Useful links: East Midlands Trains - timetable

The town

Looks nice, doesn't it? Yeah. But just wait til the tide goes out, revealing a rotten little creek of glutinous mud, dead seagulls, rusting shopping trollies and sunken boats - all caked in a rancid green slime and the overwhelming stench of broken dreams If you’re not hit by a volley of bricks, broken bottles and used condoms the moment you step off the train or out of your car, well done: you’re not in Hereford. You're in Boston! Let's be honest. Boston gets a bad press. But then where in the Midlands doesn't these days? If it's not people shooting each other in the face in Nottingham, it's twelve-toed, boss-eyed freaks touching their sisters in Grantham, fucking chickens in, well, Grantham, or eating babies in, er, well yes, that'll be Grantham again. And if you believe what you read in the papers, people who live in the isolated market town of Boston, Lincolnshire are frightening monsters: twelve fingered, earth-trembling, 400-stone gravy-sweating shaven-headed BNP-voting fascists who are lucky have lived beyond the age of three hours and who make their living by boiling hapless Polish migrant workers in large vats and selling them on as bars of soap to supermarkets in Mexico. And they do all of this while moaning about a bypass, or lack thereof.

Things to see and do

Boston is a town full of surprises. Many of them unpleasant, true, but scratch beneath the surface and you'll discover a vibrant, diverse community rich in sauce- sorry, history. Boston is small, but if you find yourself in town with time to kill before kick-off, there are ways to occupy your time that don't involve picking fights with locals or trying to abduct children from Central Park. You could visit the Saturday Market, a big church, a tower with wings, a non-existent seaside or a local RAF base. You could visit the Guildhall Museum - if it ever reopens. You might wish to take in some culture at Blackfriars Theatre. Or you could go and trespass on the port and watch drunk Swedish captains stagger back onto their grain ships with Latvian prostitutes. Indeed, there's so much to do you'll have to remember not to miss the match!

A windmill. There's something unique about this particular windmill, but as it's a fucking windmill we seriously doubt anyone gives a flying fuck. Still. There it is. Wow.

The Wash A casual glance at a map and the layers of seagull shit caking roofs in the town might suggest that Boston is located relatively close to the sea. The presence of a port, tide times in the paper and the unmistakable whiff of saltwater in the air all lend weight to this popular misconception. A short drive to that bit on the map where green defers to blue, however, reveals nothing like the shimmering emerald expanse of water, dotted by rolling waves, windsurfers and swimmers you might expect to find. There isn’t even a promenade of Mafia-owned amusement arcades. No, what you’ll actually unearth is a vast, post-apocalyptic landscape of thick mud, creeks, sandbanks and rusting ship carcasses – all being strafed to crap by supersonic RAF jets.

The Wash

Welcome to the coast

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The sea itself will be a barely visible glint far away on the distant horizon. Should you attempt to try and walk to it, one of two things will happen. You will either get caught out by the tide and drown, or you will stumble into a huge pit of quicksand and bombed by the RAF as you flash your torch for help.

Still, on a brighter note there are, apparently, ample opportunities to watch animals with wings flying about. Some of them are presumably 'rare' and 'endangered', if that’s the kind of thing that gets you going.

A few years ago, for example, Boston was shaken by what sounded like a huge explosion. The blast roared around the town, rattling window panes, causing townsfolk to flinch and family pets to mess the carpet. The cause was a mystery. There were no reports of a fire. No planned blasting. And Tony Crane was twinkle toed Owls academy player. Wasn’t him. There was only one logical explanation. It must have been a sonic boom caused by an RAF jet.

“Er, what sonic boom?” an RAF spokesman said when questioned. “No idea what you’re talking about.”

“Are you sure it wasn’t anything to do with the plane that looked suspiciously like a top secret Eurofighter flying about?” Bostonians asked, this being the time the jet was shrouded in secrecy.

“Eurowhatyousaynow?” replied the RAF. “Probably just a weather balloon. A cloud, even.”

Unconvincing. Not that the locals cared much. Bear in mind that this is the county where a random old bloke thought a Tornado flying over his house ‘sounded funny’, so he called RAF Waddington to tell them the plane was kaput. When the RAF engineers stopped laughing at him, he convinced them to at least look at the jet. When they examined the engine, the RAF discovered a fault with a turbine blade so serious that the jet was in imminent danger of dropping from the sky with the vertical grace of a Paul Ellender clearance. Bonkers.

Where to stuff your poxy little mouth hole

In Boston, your choice of eatery is likely to be determined by which local establishment has not been condemned by shocked Health and Safety officials rather than by any scale of quality, and the list of cafes, restaurants and snack bars that fail to keep their rats in check is growing daily. The traditional pre-match food in Boston is, unsurprisingly, fish and chips, and if that's what you're looking for there are really only two destinations. Tates, in the town centre, was once voted 'Chippie of the Year' by Yorkshire TV, and they celebrated by hanging a banner outside their building for the next decade. If you can stomach the queuing, it's the best bet. Otherwise, head for Eagles. It's across the road from York Street and although the quality has varied over the years it generally remains a perfectly adequate vendor of battered fish corpses.

Eagles: chips and fish

The Ship Tavern (Custom House Lane, Boston, PE21 6HH) is across John Adams Way, a five minute walk from the ground and keeps a decent pint of Batemans.

The Coach and Horses (86 Main Ridge, Boston, PE21 6SY) is an even shorter walk from the ground, about 54 seconds, although its proximity to York Street ensures it gets a little crowded on matchdays. You might like that.

Or you could just pop into the Sportsbar. Having undergone a recent refit by the club, it actually has windows now. And proper beer. It's generally welcoming to away fans, given that it is home to the hardcore United fans, most of whom are well into their second century and have long since given up feeling any kind of antipathy to visiting supporters given they are extremely grateful to simply still be alive. Bask in the love.

Links: impsTALK's interactivisation Windows Live map thingy of pubs and stuff

In the vicinity... Skegness

If your ideal night out is lying unconscious, face-down in a pool of rancid Barcadi Breezer-saturated vomit in the middle of a preposterously dreadful nightclub playing Bonkers Vol 1 thru 52 at 3.30am, surrounded by violent bigots fighting 300-pound bouncers, you will be delighted to learn that Skegness is a mere 45 minutes up the road. Skegness is a popular destination for Bostonians who feel the curious need to marry their liver-melting alcohol consumption with a revolting combination of tacky, run-down mudflat resort and parochial Lincolnshire market town. Put simply, no-one should ever go to Skegness. Not even the train from Boston wants to go there, the track forging stubbornly north until steering eastwards, sharply and reluctantly, at the last possible moment.

Look at it! I mean, just look at it!

Skegness is perhaps best summed up by its pier, a pitiful structure mortally wounded in a storm years ago and yet never repaired. It barely reaches the beach, let alone the sea, poking half-heartedly from land with an almost apologetic shrugging-of-the-shoulders; a shameless statement of hopeless underachievement. That's Skeggy.