Grange Lane Saturday 13th December 2014 FA Trophy 1st Round
The 3G end and Humber Bridge somewhere
Monday December 1st- the draw was made and I discover to my horror it is North Ferriby away. Bad for a number of reasons.
1) Not a great ground
2) Not many fans
3) We’ll get hoofed out of the cup
4) Few others will bother as we play them there in 2 weeks anyway
5) Expensive
6) Long trip from Birmingham
7) Same league
8) Been there before- the 3-0 debacle last year
But after taking in Boston v Brackley, Redditch v Hungerford and Stafford v Rushall and a trying week at school, i was up for it- until 0855, when I found out the Reading- Newcastle train hadn’t left yet. Cue a call to Nick to discuss plan B, but when I ended the call, I noticed the train had got underway, 20 minutes late.
Thinking it would leave Birmingham late, I decided to get the train 20 minutes later and although it was 9 minutes later than the expected 1007, I only realized to my horror on the platform that I had misjudged things and the train would make up ALL of the time lost and leave Brum ON TIME at 1030. 1030 came and went as I nervously checked the progress of the Cross Country train and as I raced to the platform at New St, my heart sank when I saw a train pulling away…. but it was a Virgin train.
I burst onto the train before Hallgarth flagged me down- an impressive feat for a man who had just got 4 hours sleep the night before after an Xmas party. The journey towards Doncaster was uneventful as we met Nick at Derby (and he was soon told to vacate his seat, dude! Whoever the fuck says Dude nowadays deserves lynching.)
We then headed for Doncaster and bumped into Tom and a local who remembered Boston v Doncaster matches from the football league days (though the epic late comeback to get a 2-2 draw at home the year we won the Conference tops the lot). A quick subway later and we boarded the crawler towards Hull. New rail territory for me and we spent 50 minutes on this train squeezed into a table area before alighting at Ferriby at 1:30. It is half a mile from the ground and it was noticeably frosty, just like the pitch was when we arrived.
Clubhouse side
I paid TWELVE QUID to get in but luckily the pie and chips was superb (proper pie, as the sign says), had a chat with an ex cricket colleague and then we had a mooch around the small Grange Lane ground, which had a 15 yard strip down the Railway side (since done up with a few more seats added) where no sun had shone and it looked like frozen ground, but this is Ferriby and they don’t do postponements (apparently)
What they do however, is long ball. Tom Denton is a gigantic striker and unsurprisingly all their play revolved around lumping it towards him, watch him win the header and pick up any 2nd balls. We struggled early on and we close to going behind twice as they had one off the line and then an effort off the post.
The first half was dreadful- neither side got it down and we got sucked in to their game. That said, we did grow into the game slightly and Denton wasn’t winning as many flicks as the half progressed.
In the shadow of the Humber Bridge the 321 in attendance were losing the will to live, but luckily the 2nd half was better and after D’Laryea managed to somehow clear a poked effort from a corner over his own crossbar as we started brightly.
New seats down the Railway side… and ice
Then the hosts had a spell of pressure and Jamie Yates almost curled in a free kick but the crossbar came to our rescue. However, the game did burst to life on 67 minutes as Yates was robbed by Jones in the right back area and he fed Newsham, who’s scuffed effort deceived Nicklin and bounced into the net to the delight of the 120 or so squeezed into the corner of the Railway side.
Yates should’ve made up for his error a few minutes later but somehow blazed over from inside the box after the initial shot was well blocked by a Pilgrims defender.
That looked like proving costly as Jones latched onto a through ball and looked set to score before being upended by Danny Hone (his 2nd red against us in 3 games). Penalty + Red Card = Game over?
Well, no. Scott Garner’s penalty was superbly tipped onto the bar by Nicklin before the follow up was drilled inches wide. We still looked relatively comfortable but it was only 1-0. One ball into the box could change all that.
The Allotment end in the fading light
On 88 minutes, Ferriby worked space down the right and a cross was met by Ryan Kendall (Pilgrims summer target) who got the ball from under his feet to slot past Dixon to equalize.
In the final moments, they looked like the side with 11 men as they pushed for a winner but a draw was about right, but stunned silence at the end- because they had no fans to cheer and we were shell shocked after letting a great position slip.
With an hour to wait, we headed for the warmth of the clubhouse and had a chat with Greene who was rightly pissed off. Carl Pellegrini got our man of the match, with Carl Piergianni (knackered) picking up the bottle of wine.
At 5:30, we headed for Ferriby station and boarded the train to Doncaster. Staying on at Brough- we were left with an hour of listening to the joys of the local dialect (it made North Nottingham’s seem bearable) and facing the prospect of a mad dash at Doncaster. Luckily, in a way, that train was held up behind ours as we both waited to be allocated one of EIGHT platforms, so without even shaking hands, we dashed off to make the train.
Nick gets a corker of me
We did so Nick and I were left with standing room only until Sheffield, having to listen to local train drivers describe in local dialect how they speed through tunnels and nearly run High Speed trains off the rails through speeding. They gre increasingly fidgety at sheffield as they couldn’t quite get off for a beer after a shift.
We got seats and from there, it was a quiet enough ride, although there were a number of Wealdstone Raider impersonations about. The final bit of note was at King’s Norton, as I headed for a takeaway. A pupil stopped me and asked where I’d been to. His mate then decided to ask if I’d watched the Blues (Birmingham)… a stupid question given I was wearing a yellow Boston scarf but hey… better than being mistaken for a wolves fan… or is it?
So we pray for a good draw (southern team away or Grimsby would be nice) and hope to actually win the replay on Tuesday. It will be another physical test and some tired legs may take to the field against Barrow on Saturday.
Overall, a good day out in the circumstances but a sense of a missed opportunity and the replay brings more nerves than optimism.
North Ferriby (3-5-2): Adam Nicklin; Mark Gray, Danny Hone, Josh Wilde; Jamie Yates (Gregg Anderson 80), Adam Bolder (Ryan Kendall 75), Liam King, Jonathan D’Laryea, Jason St Juste (Russell Fry 80); Tom Denton, Nathan Jarman. Subs (not used): Nathan Peat, Tom Nicholson (gk).
Boston (4-4-2): Joel Dixon; Liam Marrs, Zak Mills, Carl Piergianni, Rene Steer; Kaine Felix, Scott Garner, Kyle Dixon, Greg Tempest (Michael Hollingsworth 80); Marc Newsham (Jamie McGhee 83),Mark Jones. Subs (not used): David Fallah, Ollie Price, Sam Vince (gk).
Referee: Michael Salisbury.
Attendance: 321 (about 120 Boston)
Next up- A trip to Barrow to see us attempt to spoil the leaders’ 100% home league record. A team we were fortunate to beat on the opening day, Some achievement if we can make it 7 league games unbeaten.
Under The Floodlights 