York Street Conference North Saturday January 4th 2014
Boston United returned to winning ways after 5 games winless in December with an exciting 5-2 win over Vauxhall Motors at York Street.
On a wet afternoon in Lincolnshire proceedings started with firstly a presentation to Marc Newsham on his 100 goals for the club and also a minute’s applause for Barbara Singleton- a local journalist and loyal servant of the club, helping organise functions and away travel, who lost here battle with cancer earlier this week.
Dennis Greene made 3 changes to the side that lost 2-1 at Telford, with Ricky Miller returning from injury in place of Ben Fairclough. Ian Ross replaced the departed Jake Hall and Conor Marshall replaced the injured Liam Marrs.
Both sides had moments early on, most notsbly Marc Newsham, who shot wide from 30 yards with the goal gaping after makeshift striker Scott Garner charged down a clearance from the visitors’ keeper Zac Jones. Danny Fearnehough having a header and an acrobatic effort threaten for the visitors.
The Pilgrims went ahead after 12 minutes through a familiar source- Newsham. Good work down the left flank led to Ian Ross putting in a ball which Garner headed down, with Newsham on hand to grab a trademark tap-in from 6 yards.
Boston settled down after that and began to enjoy the lions share of the game. Jones had to produce fine saves to deny both Miller and Newsham. The Motormen also had their own nearly moments but luckily for Boston, the final touch wasn’t quite right on a couple of occasions.
United did double their lead shortly before half time, when Garner headed home from close range following an Ian Ross corner, so Boston lead 2-0 at half time, but being an usual position, the fans were still edgy about the 2nd half ahead.
Any negative thoughts appeared to have been laid to rest as 7 minutes after the break, Newsham squeezed a shot home from close range after Indy Aujla’s header had made its way to him completely unmarked.
But Vauxhall soon showed why they carried a threat going forwards and almost immediately reduced the arrears through a Louis Barnes free kick. The 20 yarder well struck underneath the wall which had jumped, leaving Lewis King chanceless.
This galvanised the Motormen as Shaun Tuck had a low drive well saved by King before they further cut the deficit after 65 minutes when a delightful cross from the right was well headed in by Fearnehough, who then had a chance to equalize go narrowly wide of King’s near post shortly after.
Amid high levels of anxiety, Boston began to look for gaps in the visitors’ defence and went close through a Carl Piergianni header which hit the bar, then Ricky miller hit 2 shots straight at Jones when he ought to have done better.
But arguably the moment of the game calmed any nerves on 74 minutes. A through ball aimed for the offside Newsham was left by everyone and Miller raced through too delightfully lob Jones from just outside the box and put Boston 4-2 up.
Shortly afterwards, the lively Miller was tugged back in the area by Andy Nicholas and it was left to Ian Ross, and not Newsham, to roll home the resultant penalty to restored Boston’s 3 goal advantage.
After that, the game finally lost a bit of intensity as the hosts got slightly careless when more goals were there for the taking against a demoralized defence, but the full time whistle at 4:55pm finally signalled Boston’s first win since November 30th and a much needed 3 points.
United are now 7th in the table- 3 points outside the playoffs and 8 behind leaders North Ferriby United. They entertain bottom side Workington on Tuesday before a trip to ailing Hednesford (3 straight losses and no wins in 5) on Saturday.
UNITED: King, Marshall, Steer, Aujla, Garner, Piergianni, Ross (Sanders 84), Milnes, Miller, Newsham (Fairclough 78), Galinski; Subs (not used): Dongo, Dawson, Vince.
MOTORS: Jones, Wainwright, Barnes, Hannigan, Nicholas, Clair, Fearnehough (Hughes 84), Williams, Tuck, Ellams, Noone (Rutter 60); Subs (not used): Hughes, Davies, Martindale, Mendes.
Ref: Chris Pollard.
Match Rating 9/10- Very exciting, both sides not afraid to go forwards and could easily have been more goals
Att: 931 (4 visitors)
Thanks for reading
Josh
Under The Floodlights 