More memories of the FA Cup 1991-2008 in Lincolnshire and beyond

Before leaving Boston and returning to Edinburgh on this scene setting journey explaining my fascination with the FA Cup I feel I must widen the net beyond Boston United. Whilst the York Street experience was the main course during our stay in Boston, there were a few tasty side dishes to savour. My son Brian and I would go to the football every Saturday. With Boston United obviously only playing at home on alternate Saturdays this provided opportunities to see some of the other teams in the area play and the FA Cup was always uppermost in our thoughts in planning our fixture list. Between the years 1992 and 2006 we scoured the surrounding area for FA Cup ties if the Pilgrims were away from home. We went to FA Cup qualifying round matches in Spalding, Holbeach, Wisbech, Bourne, Stamford. Lincoln Moorlands, Lincoln United, Grantham, Retford, Worksop, Fakenham, Kings Lynn and Gainsborough. Additionally we saw some cracking later round ties including games at Nottingham Forest, Notts County, Peterborough, Mansfield, Lincoln City and Newcastle United. We were also fortunate enough to see the famous semi final tie in 1997 at Old Trafford when Chesterfield and a Middlesbrough team featuring Juninho, Emerson and Ravanelli drew 3-3. 

               

                       

With Boston United typically exempt until the fourth qualifying round then as the early qualifying rounds were drawn there was always one team that Brian and I would look out for and that was Boston Town. Boston Town are Boston’s second team and play in the United Counties League (UCL) three tiers below the league that Boston United play in. During our time in Boston it was ever thus. Boston United typically attract about 1000 punters to their matches. Town typically attract about 100 spectators to their league games. It was always great to see them play. It was also cheap and you could get a pint at half time but the atmosphere was less intense and obviously the standard of football was not as good. The first time I went to see Boston Town was on Tuesday the 22^nd October 1991 under the floodlights at their Tattershall Road ground.  The attendance was 47 – I know this because I counted them. The opposition for this UCL fixture was Stewarts and Lloyds of Corby then known as Hamlet S & L. 

I had been down in Boston for about a week and I was getting used to hearing Bostonian accents – I was even practising my ‘all right mate’ greeting. So, I was surprised to hear the S & L players cajoling each other and advising each other using Scots accents. I thought I was having some sort of Stirling University flashback, a sort of aural hallucination. The explanation became clear to me a few years later. Corby residents are typically second or third generation Scots whose forefathers came down from Glasgow in the fifties to find work in the town. Many Corby residents have never been to Scotland but speak with Scots accents. In researching this post I looked out the programme from this match and it was of interest to see Boston United legend Chris Cook turning out for Town. He was to return to York Street and play for United for a couple more seasons for an Indian Summer and confirm his legendary status. It was also interesting to be reminded that the programme editor was my good friend Andy Sandall. Andy was one of the good guys in local non league football in the early nineties and once notoriously arranged for the Boston College staff team to take on a Boston Town XI on the hallowed Tattershall Road pitch. I still have the bruises. Andy later, in the mid nineties, invited me to write a ‘Scottish Slant’ column for the match programme. Given that only 100 people watched their games, not everyone bought a programme and that those who did buy probably did not read the whole publication, I had a very small audience. A bit like writing this blog really. However, despite all this one of my warmest feelings at a football match was having a pint in the Social Club at Town’s Tattershall Road ground before a match and noticing a guy reading the page of the programme where my article was housed and a big grin coming over his face as he read one of my comedy-gold football soundbytes.

Brian and I occasionally followed Boston Town away in the FA Cup also and in September 1995 we travelled to see if Town David could topple the Goliath that was Kings Lynn FC of the Beazer Homes League. 

Kings Lynn got good crowds and 1157 turned up to see what promised to be an enthralling tie. The reason that this tie was more memorable than others we attended was that Town had two men sent off in the first 25 minutes of the match and it is enough of a disadvantage trying to take on a team from a couple of divisions higher without giving them a 2 player start. Kings Lynn won 5-1. One of the most fascinating features of the FA Cup is the David and Goliath struggle. I must have watched over 100 FA Cup ties in my 17 years in Boston and saw many such David v Goliath tussles. Other than seeing Boston United fall to a series of lower league teams in the early nineties I never did see a genuinely tiny David fell the mythical giant. Perhaps that particular treat awaits me on the Road to Wembley from Scotland 2016-17.

The Donkin family returned to Midlothian in 2008 and a chance for me to watch Hearts every week and also a chance to find out more about the romance of the Scottish FA Cup.