Keys Park Conference North Saturday January 11th 2014
Boston United’s recent upturn in fortunes came to a shattering halt as a scratch side slumped to a 4-2 defeat to fellow promotion chasers Hednesford
United fans at Keys Park before kickoff
Pre Game
A trip I had been looking forwards to for a while. Keys Park is a nice ground and the game took on added importance as both teams were in the hunt for the top 5 places. We’d ended a poor Xmas with 2 wins over 2 poor sides, Vauxhall Motors and Workington whilst Hednesford had slumped to their 3rd straight defeat and were winless in 5. But United had only put 3 straight wins together once in 3 years.
Leaving the house at 9:50, I met Tom at Nottingham Station and we boarded the 10:40 to Birmingham. It was good to catch up with Tom after only bumping into him briefly at the Vauxhall game last week since our last away trip together,
We got to Birmingham in plenty of time and waited for Adams Hallgarth and Shergold to meet up with us from their trains from the south. I nipped to get a sausage roll as the delayed bus from Uni meant I was pushing it to get a Greggs at Nottingham!
£2.70 for a sausage roll, no matter how large, is way too much, but I was hungry and paid it! I had planned to grab a picture of the receipt, but sadly the charger had not worked on the camera this morning so it was rendered useless for the day.
Tom also discovered to his horror the Brummies were funding the New Street station upgrade by robbing you of 30p just to have a pee! Those worries put aside, we boarded the 12:42 train to Rugeley Trent Valley (though we’d get off at Hednesford).
The train was one of the worst I’ve ever been on. It as just a quieter version of the Nottingham-Skegness ‘service’ and on a nicer train without the complete mongs that go on it. We never hit 30mph all the way and what could’ve been a 20 minute hop was 45 minutes of pure misery, except of course, i was in very good company and we were all quietly optimistic, despite the depleted squad and raft of debutants who would figure, that we could get a result.
Arriving at 1:30, we made our way to the Cross Keys Pub to see the 2nd half of Hull-Chelsea and Shergold kindly offered to buy the round (being a tight bugger I wasn’t going to refuse!) and watched Chelsea go 2-0 up before deciding to head for Keys Park.
Despite it being a new ground (relatively), the car park resembled a boggy assault course which would become even more hairy after the game and I headed for the turnstiles, after finding out there were no programmes on sale because they weren’t delivered to the ground this morning!
£6 for a concession at what is one of the nicer grounds in the league was good and we set up in the Heath Hayes End, a sizeable terrace behind one goal, roughly 30 yards to the left of the Hednesford regulars.
There were around 60-80 of us here, with others dotted around (I’d say in the crowd of 650, there were 120-150 Boston) and the 2 sets of fans being close together made for a good atmosphere.
The Game
Hednesford: Crane, Disney, Campion, McCone, Francis (Bailey 69), Thorley, Osborne (Taylor 55), Durrell, Robinson (Harvey 22), Blissett, Thompson-Brown. Unused Subs- Woolfe, McPherson
Boston: Lewis King, Liam Agnew, Daniel Pritchard, Conor Marshall (Ngoni Dongo 81), Stefan Galinski, Carl Piergianni, Ian Ross (James Reed 45), Ben Milnes, Ricky Miller, Marc Newsham, Pa Sulay Njie (Brad Gascoigne 54). Unused Subs- Sam Vince, Charlie Ward
Ref: M. Bristow
Attendance: 650
With Dennis Greene fielding so many new players or players being out of position, there were fears as to how they would go. The early exchanges were fairly even- Hednesford having a decent opening when Marvin Robinson fluffed his lines and shot wide when well placed.
But Robinson made amends on 12 minutes, as he headed home almost unmarked from a delightful ball in from John Disney… nothing Mickey Mouse about this goal- though our marking was questionable.
We struggled to cope with the giant Nathan Blisset up top winning nearly every header and long ball the put forwards- it was also apparent now that one of the new signings- ex Stoke and Coventry striker Pa Sular Njie, was actually looking like a leggy version of Emile Heskey on a bad day- looking totally devoid of match practise or inspiration.
Another new signing, Adam Pritchard was also in the action, having to make a goal-line clearance after Robinson went through and beat Lewis King.
But the 2nd did come and again it was quite soft on our part. Moments after Carl Piergianni headed an effort off the line, Hednesford, the resultant corner was headed in by another tall player, defender Paul McCone and the reality that it wasn’t working began to set in, but to be fair, we gave the team excellent backing throughout the 90 minutes.
We weren’t looking overly impressive but on 32 minutes suddenly Ricky Miller managed to turn his man and beautifully rolled one into the bottom corner, the Boston fans erupted, chants of Ricky Miller rang our. I was in the process of texting people we were back in it and then suddenly I look up, King has parried a low cross and Neil Harvey banged in the loose ball to make it 3-1.
How far I got through the text before Hednesford’s 3rd!!!
The home fans, who were silenced seconds earlier were now jubilant and surprisingly, despite only 2 stewards being in the way, it didn’t kick off, unlike at Brackley…
Hednesford then had more chances to further increase the lead and our half was summed up when we took a corner to the edge of the box and promptly lost possession with 7 players in the home penalty box!
Half time came with the disappointing boos from some of our fans, chanting “Dennis, sort it out!” and wondering if Njie really was the worst signing we’d ever made!
Cue a £4.00 trip just to get a hotdog and a bottle of water at half time and we gathered at the opposite end for the 2nd half. The Hednesford End, which is normally a seating zone but not today. One or two of ours went on the last at half time- a trick which almost worked at Brackley, but would not work today. 2 minutes into the 2nd half, it was 4-1 as we failed to clear and Blissett tapped in. Ian Ross had gone off injured and young James Reed had to come on and the rout was well and truly on.
Gascoigne replaced Njie to loud cheers after 55 minutes and I sort of felt sorry for him, if it was a case of being thrust into the side at short notice and looking well short of any form and fitness.
But just after the hour, we reduced the arrears through the excellent Miller, who collected Piergianni’s pass and squeezed his shot home past Crane and we had a glimmer, cue the wild celebrations for a consolation goal before realizing it won’t be a good idea to go on the pitch as there was a 2 foot drop to pitch level!
Sadly, we didn’t really have too much after that. Miller had half a sniff when he should’ve shot rather than take a touch but other than that, we couldn’t break down an organised and very strong back line and the full time whistle sounded shortly after 4:50pm to signal our first defeat in 3, but a crucial one against a side who will be around us at the end of the season.
Post Game
So we made our way back, via a chippy to the station. Having just missed the 1723, we waited till 1753 and boarded the slow village express to Birmingham. Despite only 8 people being in our coach, Nick decided to ring and ask how things went at exactly the time drunken Brummies started piping up- with my ageing phone and its hopeless speaker, I barely heard a word (sorry mate!) though I did gather his Cavaliers game wasn’t the best game he’d ever witnessed (although it did end in a low quality 4-3 thriller, if you get it!)
Arriving into Birmingham, we left the Adams and boarded the train back to Nottingham, which got in at 8:15, after having a brief wait for some sleeper trains which looked very cosy. Tom had to get a train to Grantham where he’d get picked up. I had a bus… just another away day following the Pilgrims!
Match- 7/10 We were never really in it but 6 goals is never to be snuffed at
BUFC performance- 4/10- Only Miller came out with any real credit. Njie certainly did not.
Ground- 8/10 Nice ground. 2 big terraces, a decent main stand and a small but cozy seated end where we stood 2nd half. League 1 standard at a push.
Prices- 7/10. Entry (£6 concession) was good but food was a bit deer. and don’t get me going on £2.70 for a sausage roll at Birmingham New Street!
Atmosphere- 8/10. We rarely stopped singing. The home fans were less vocal, probably in disbelief about winning a game after a while. Kudos for the “We are staying up” chant at 1-0 when we asked them to “Sing a song for us”
Overall- 8/10. Good company on the train ride, nice pub to pop in and watch the game on TV, good support… just the bit on the pitch between 3:10 and 4:10 which wasn’t good.
Thanks for reading!
Josh
Under The Floodlights 