ENTERPRISE NATIONAL LEAGUE. TUESDAY, 21st OCTOBER 2025.

Finally – it clicks at Boston United.

It’s a long way to Tipperary – and almost as far to Boston in Lincolnshire. It’s also a long time since our two clubs last met: possibly 1996 when Morecambe were beaten 3-0 in the FA Cup in Lincolnshire. I can’t find any other instances of meetings between the two clubs but plenty more have certainly happened, as we shall see.

This is what I wrote about them in my guide to the National League earlier this season:

Boston United’s home ground – the Boston Community Stadium – was built in 2020 to replace the old one-time Greyhound Track at York Street which had been their home for 83 years until that time. 

The ground – complete with classic pylon floodlights and wooden stands – can still be found, overgrown and dilapidated, about three miles north of the new venue. In a sense, this could be argued to be an allegory for the club itself – something rotting in the heart of a distinctly rural town just as there seems to have been something rotten in the heart of the club for much of its relatively recent existence.

Blimey – that’s a bit heavy isn’t it?

So let’s ask ourselves: what is Boston actually famous for?

Sorry – time’s up.

The internet tells us:

Boston, Lincolnshire, is known for its rich history as a medieval port and its iconic landmark, St. Botolph’s Church (also known as “The Stump”)

Boston has also been described as `the least integrated town in England’ with 75% of its inhabitants voting for Brexit in a bid to expel mostly Eastern European migrants who have been indispensible to gathering the harvests in a predominantly agrarian economy but are resented by the bulk of the natives for complex reasons.

But – at the risk of becoming far too Woke and on-message – is a football club really a reflection of the community it is supposed to represent?

The jury’s out – make your own mind up.

Whatever, the new Boston United stadium is 190 miles from the Mazuma Mobile Stadium as you cross from the western to the eastern seaboard of England from the Irish Sea’s Morecambe Bay inlet to the side of the North Sea and The Wash in rural Lincolnshire.

United’s nickname is `the Pilgrims’ due a petty tenuous link between Plymouth’s Pilgrim Fathers (some of whom allegedly originated in Lincolnshire but from which – in the absence of such god-given facilities as railways or roads at the time – it was hundreds of miles away by sea) and the Boston they founded in what is now Massachusetts in the USA.  

Whatever, it is supposed to be their ship – The Mayflower – that features on the club’s badge.

You could argue – particularly as a native of particular city in Devon with a football club of its own called Argyle – that this representation is actually fraudulent. But – in the relatively recent past – these particular Lincolnshire Pilgrims have been no strangers to fraudulent activities and theirs is a very chequered recent history indeed…

The up-side for the club is what remains a record win for any non-league club against EFL opposition when they demolished Derby County (then a Second Division club) at the old Baseball Ground by an astounding six goals to one during the mid-1950s.

In 1985, the club played at Wembley for the first and only time so far when they met Wealdstone in the FA Trophy final but lost by two goals to one.

Back in the day, Morecambe and United first came across each other as founder-members of the Northern Premier League. Boston had previously been members of the Midland League; joined the Southern League briefly; were then refused entry back into the Midland League and were actually playing in the West Midlands League when they joined forces with Morecambe of the Lancashire Combination and others in the new NPL during 1968.

The Pilgrims were a powerhouse in the new competition, winning it four times and coming second once before becoming founder-members of the Alliance Premier League in 1980. But when the Alliance morphed into the Football Conference, Boston took a step backwards…

They were relegated back to the NPL in 1993 but soon transferred to the Southern League once more, winning it in 2000. They became full-time professional a year later and won the Conference to finally become a Football League Club in 2001.

Their new status didn’t last very long though – and arguably should not have been awarded in the first place anyway. The club’s rather less than personable Manager – the literally heavyweight Glaswegian bruiser Steve Evans – along with Chairman Pat Malkinson were charged with breaking FA rules concerning player registrations and were banned (Evans for an astonishing twenty months) as the club was fined four points into the bargain. The pair also received suspended jail sentences for “Conspiring to cheat the public revenue between 1997 and 2002”.

This scandal caused genuine controversy because if these points had been deducted – as they should have been – from Boston’s haul to win the Conference at the time the offences were actually committed, league runners-up Dagenham & Redbridge would have been promoted to the EFL instead of them. And this hasn’t been forgotten in east London…

Evans returned to the fold after his long-term ban and managed to keep the Pilgrims in the EFL until 2007, when they were relegated on the last day of the League Two season – and he immediately abandoned the sinking Pilgrim Fathers’ ship for Pastures New at Crawley Town.

But – due to even more shady financial shenanigans off the pitch and under pressure from the HMRC – the club were booted out of the EFL straight into the Conference North. This was effectively a double relegation and I don’t think this has happened to any other English Football League club ever. (Although one I can think of may be on the verge of suffering an equally severe punishment – or even worse…) Further humiliation lay in store as the Pilgrims were banned from all Conference leagues and ended-up back in the NPL in time for the 2008-9 season.

Finally returned to the Conference North under the joint management of Paul Hurst and Rob Scott, more bad blood was spilt as the club successfully sued both of them for breach of contract when they jointly upped sticks and moved to relatively nearby Grimsby Town in 2011. The Mariners had to pay Boston over ten grand in compensation and this also hasn’t been forgotten in north Lincolnshire.

Off the field, though, things hardly improved.

A Pilgrim is apparently an individual who seeks what they see as Hallowed Ground somewhere away from where they find themselves at the beginning of their Pilgrimage.

But Boston’s new Pilgrims were frustrated in this sacred duty as they sought the Promised Land of their new ground a few miles to the south of their abandoned Valhalla, a.k.a. York Street.

They found themselves playing at Gainsborough Trinity’s ground for a period when York Street had been dumped but their new stadium wasn’t ready. And so it went on for some time as the very future of the club lay in the balance for several more years. Eventually though, their fourteen-year absence from the National League ended two years ago with a Play-Off win against Brackley Town in the National North final. Last season, the Pilgrims finished nineteenth in the National League.

Morecambe have played Boston countless times in the old NPL. I can tell you for certain that the Shrimps lost to them one-nil at Christie Park on Saturday 8th November 1969 and then beat them a season later on Saturday 9th January 1971 by the same score at the same venue because I was there.

The Shrimps’ very first fixture in the National League was scheduled to be played at the Boston Community Stadium on Saturday, 9th August 2025. Thanks to the intransigence of former owner Jason Whittingham, it couldn’t be. So the re-arranged fixture will take place on Tuesday, 21st October 2025 with a kick-off at quarter to eight in the evening. United will then make a Pilgrimage to Lancashire on Saturday, 6th December 2025.

Bringing things right up to date, the sort of intolerance highlighted in the article above seems to remain a problem in Boston, which appears to have a very small gene pool. We’ve seen that the town already has a reputation for antagonism towards what they call Frim Folk: outsiders. So maybe it’s no surprise that the Pilgrims were fined £700 by the FA just last week for breaking their Rule 21: no abuse of minorities.

United chairman David Newton commented about this development:

“The club have been sanctioned over homophobic chanting that took place at the home fixture against Woking in March. This has resulted in a £700 fine for the club, and we are now subject to an action plan as directed by the FA, to try to prevent such actions in the future. We need to say that this arose around the chant of ‘get up you puff’ – and what may have been deemed ‘acceptable’ in the past is not acceptable in any way today. We need the help of all supporters to stamp this out. We also have dealt with the racial abuse of a player (by an away fan) not long ago. This is simply not acceptable. We have a fantastic fanbase which overall represents Boston United in the right way, and are a credit to the club, but there remains a minority that cross the line. We ask all fans to support the club passionately, but please do not cross the line.”

The Pilgrims currently sit in fifteenth position in the National League. They are on a run of two games won and just one lost in their last five league outings. But they were also badly beaten at Carlisle in the FA Cup just over a week ago: they lost 5-2 at Brunton Park. Last Saturday, they managed a 1-1 draw against fellow-Yellowbelly (local dialect for a native of Lincolnshire) club Scunthorpe at home.

But Morecambe can’t beat anyone at the moment. After being humiliated by a lower league club in the shape of Chester City a week ago in Cheshire, Morecambe continued their utterly dire league form last Saturday at home. For the first time ever, Southend United beat Morecambe in a league game during which the Shrimps yet again conceded three goals without reply; keeping their average Goals Against column this season at precisely three per game. It was clear right from the start of the game that the Shrimpers’ Head Coach Kevin Maher had figured-out in advance how Ashvir’s Shrimps play – and countered it with a High Press right from the start. Morecambe had no answer to this: they just continued passing the ball sideways and backwards to no obvious effect as a result of it.

They started tonight’s fixture rock-bottom of the table and five points from safety, albeit with a couple of games in hand. Manager Ashvir Singh Johal has been telling whoever would listen for weeks that his team would finally gel and start winning at the end of this month.

But his side has picked-up only one from a potential eighteen points in their last six league matches.

So if his prediction that his team will dramatically improve before November, he has only tonight’s game and the one next Saturday at Eastleigh to prove it.

He repeated his favourite Mantra yet again after the game on Saturday:

“The performance level wasn’t a three-nil defeat. It was a very positive half-time. The result is so disappointing but there are so many signs of a good performance that once we get going and once it clicks, then we’ve got a really good team. There are so many things we can take from today’s game as a positive. The players and ourselves are really looking forward to Tuesday because we can put in a real positive performance. We’re a good team. The situation where we are in the league position situation: that’s the reality of the situation but we’re a good team. The team and ourselves, we haven’t lost any confidence.”

Sadly, this view was then immediately contradicted by one of the players who had been on the field for the entire game on Saturday, who was honest enough to admit that their `heads had gone down’ after the first goal; that he at least thought `here we go again!’ and that the team had `lost confidence in front of goal.’ He said that he realised that this wasn’t the `right mindset’ to approach games but you don’t have to be a genius to see that losing becomes a habit and constantly losing brings lots of bad things – such as a negative mindset – with it.

I don’t know what ex-Newport County boss and current Boston’s Manager Graham Coughlan said about the game prior to kick-off because their X feed and website doesn’t tell us. But he would know that a player he has lent to us this season (and one who has caught the eye recently as a midfield player with an eye to attack) – Arjan Reikhy – would be unavailable to the opposition tonight. He also knew that Captain Zak Mills – who once played for the Shrimps – couldn’t play either due to injury.

This must have been disappointing for the hosts and I was disappointed too. I thought Zak was tremendous when he played for us. But his absence also denied me of a classic – albeit really corny line.

As his team-mate Number Two called Ben might have passed to him this evening, I could have written:

Grist to the Mill.

Sorry – but this sort of drivel is important to me.

Anyway, building work is still underway at Boston’s ground so we had the spectacle of a sort-of Oxford United Panorama this evening – with just cars instead of spectators parked at one end of the pitch.

It was dry and crisp as the game started. Just two minutes had passed as Morecambe were trying to pass the ball around at the back only for Boston to press them and Lewis Payne to hoof the ball up the field from the left.

What was that all about?

For almost the first quarter of an hour, the game was played in the away half. Captain Gwion Edwards – possibly too pumped up – conceded two free-kicks in his desperation to lead by example by the fourth minute.

With seven minutes played, Miguel Azeez was caught in possession after more passing about aimlessly at the back but the interception came to nothing.

However, the shape of things to come was shown after nine minutes when a promising move by the visitors took them right up the field with some sharp, accurate passing. The move came to nothing, though, as Ludwig Francillette played a long ball from the Shrimps’ left into no-man’s-land to the right and an invisible team-mate.

Twelve minutes saw the visitors yet again aimlessly passing the ball around at the back before goalkeeper Jamal Blackman kicked the ball long.

Why do they persist in doing this?

Two minutes later, though, Centre Half Maldini Calcurri found himself in an advanced position in the centre of the pitch. He lost the ball but won it back by sheer determination to play-in Jake Cain – back in his usual position in midfield as Left-Back Ben Williams took up that berth tonight – and he fairly buried the ball with an instant yet sublime shot from about 25 yards out.

The visitors were looking lively and were playing the ball well by this point in the game. But Boston won a corner to their right after 31 minutes from which Kieren Donnelly forced a really good save from Shrimps’ Stopper Jamal Blackman with a fierce header.

Seven minutes later, though, the team from the west coast were two goals to the good. Cain got into a threatening position on the right and forced a superb save from Rhys Lovett in the home goal only for Gwion to latch onto the rebound and force the ball home from an acute angle from the left.

Morecambe ended the half on the attack as Edwards did brilliantly to cut a dangerous ball back from the Boston left goal-line into the centre and the men in the yellow strip struggled to clear it.

So the Shrimps went back to the Dressing Rooms at half time in a really unusual position: winning.

Could they keep it up or would Graham Coughlan stir his men into some sort of response?

Just six minutes had been played when Lovett struggled to push a relatively weak shot from a Jack Nolan free-kick away for a corner to his left. Jack took the resulting corner too and looped the ball to the far post where an unmarked Joe Nuttall headed home with apparent ease.

It got even better after 58 minutes as Morecambe’s approach play was again superb as they progressed up their left flank and Marcel Lavinier handled the ball as it headed towards his goalkeeper. Nuttall converted the resultant penalty really confidently to make it two goals in five minutes for him.

And that was that.

Three points; a clean sheet and a simply superb display from the Shrimps tonight – by a country mile, their best performance of the season.

So what can you say? Those of us – like Yours Truly – must eat really Humble Pie for ever doubting our Manager or suggesting that he doesn’t know what he is doing. His team’s performance tonight was impeccable from front to back and they were unrecognisable from the shambles served up at Chester just seven short days ago. It clicked – just as he has always predicted it would.

The win pushed Morecambe off the bottom of the National League table for the first time in ages. Although the re-arranged fixture tonight used-up one of the games they had in hand over most of their rivals, the Shrimps ended the evening just two points from safely with a spare match over all the teams immediately above them. Sutton United now drop to the bottom of the pack and Boston slip to sixteenth.

Ashvir Singh Johal would be understandably ecstatic – as well as mightily relieved – tonight. As well he might be. His team and his tactics looked unassailable this evening. Maybe he’s simply too smart for all of us after all…

He talked a lot about data after the game but this was his positive message for everyone tonight:

“Really pleased with the clean sheet. Also really pleased with how there’s been a clear plan in every game, and today the players executed that magnificently. But now the important thing – this result’s gone – now the full focus is on the game on Saturday and that we win that game as well.”

Boston United: 1 Rhys Lovett; 2 Benjamin Grist; 3 Michael Kelly (7 Rocco Coyle 62’); 6 Greg Sloggett (C) (Y); 8 Dylan Hill; 11 Kieren Donnelly (27 Manni Norkett 76’); 14 Lennell John-Lewis (16 Jordy Hiwula-Mayifuila (Y) 38’); 15 Matty Carson; 18 Tommy Fogarty; 25 Liam Waldock (23 Owen Hampson 62’); 40 Marcel Lavinier (Y).

Subs not used: 13 Harry French; 31 Finley Ging.

Morecambe:  40 Jamal Blackman; 2 Lewis Payne; 5 Maldini Calcurri; 6 Ludwig Francillette; 7 Gwion Edwards (C) (18 Ben Tollitt 61’); 8 Miguel Azeez; 10 Jake Cain; 15 Ben Williams (Y) (24 Yann Songo’o 62’); 21 Joe Nuttall (11 Admiral Muskwe 75’); 29 Elijah Dixon-Bonner (20 Mohammed Sangare 86’); 36 Jack Nolan (12 Rolando Aarons 75’).

Subs not used: 1 Archie Mair; 28 Emmerson Sutton.

Ref: Jason Richardson.

Att: 1,571 (46 stalwarts from Morecambe.)