Boston Town and the FA Vase

Tom Carter has written a university assignment looking back at the Poachers’ famous FA Vase run of 1993-94 and comparing it to this season’s run.
Tom is studying sports journalism at Huddersfield University and has given us permission to reproduce his assignment here ahead of the trip to Worceser City.

An FA Vase run for the Poachers? That is a statement no Boston fan was expecting at the start of the season. Any grassroots team dreams of getting to Wembley in this competition but for the team in South Lincolnshire, it isn’t often they get to the first-round proper let alone the third round which they find themselves in now.

Boston Town FC last made the fourth-round proper back in 2008 and before that the only other time was in 1994 which saw the Poachers grip the town in a run that led all the way to the semi-finals, only narrowly losing Taunton Town, losing 1-0 in both legs.

There is still a long way to go yet for the team of 23/24 but let’s look back at that historic run in the mid-nineties with the help of two fans which the current team hope to match as they continue their journey away at Worcester City on the 9th December.

Andy Sandall is a Poachers fan who now lives in Florida after growing up in the South Lincolnshire town. He was the kitman and did a few training exercises at the time in 1994. He told me that he remembers the vase run vividly as it was a big transitional time for the club.

“We lost the most important person in the club’s history, Bill Stanwell (chairman), just the season before and his loss weighed over all of us who’d been at the club a while”, Andy commented. “We’d come off a period of incredible success with Bill Brindley in the Central Midlands League, had a false start with Boston United legend Jim Kabia as manager, and then we had Percy Freeman only for him to suffer heart problems at a critical time and miss most of a season”.

Sandall explained that Percy Freeman started the Vase season as manager, but present-day chairman Mick Vines was under a lot of pressure to get rid of him.

“Boston started off their vase run in auspicious circumstances as we almost went out in the preliminary round”, says club historian and social media manager Simon Ashberry.

“That trip to Fakenham was one of the most memorable games of my era there” described Sandall

“We played Fakenham Town away and it ended as a 5-5 draw. We were 5-3 down with 10 minutes to go. At the replay down at Tattershall Road, we beat them 1-0″, Ashberry continued.

Derrick Nuttall scored the winner in the replay, somebody who still has connections with the club as he was on the coaching staff up to last season and his nephew, Jordan, is a forward for the Poachers.

Bob Don Duncan was the manager for the rest of the run. Sandall mentioned that “From memory Vines had already offered Bob Don Duncan the job before the first game but now we had a replay to deal with, so Percy got one more game then was let go.”

The Poachers went onto play teams like Mirlees (now known as Blackstones), Whitehawk and Arseley Town among other teams.

“Whitehawk and Arseley Town both saw us come from behind late and score winners deep in the game, and that was when we started to feel some kind of destiny with us,” Sandall remembered.

“The locals were so unhappy with the loss one of them shoved a beer glass into the face of one of our player’s fathers, leading to a fast exit from the ground.”

“Whitehawk is a really long trip, at the time the longest away trip the club had ever had, down in Sussex,” Ashberry added, “Someone said it was a really grim housing estate on the outskirts of Brighton!”

That comment really shows the further you go in this competition, the more travelling you go around the country and the more ‘interesting’ places you see. The scorelines from the Whitehawk and Arseley games both ended 3-2 with Carl Smaller adding to his goal tally which would see him break a club record with most goals in a season for a few years with 49 to his name. In the semi-finals, the club faced Taunton Town but sadly it was not to be.

Sandall said, “When we drew Taunton in the semis, we knew it was all very real. The away leg was tense, but we gave a good account of ourselves and had chances.

“It could have been better, but I think we all felt that in a second leg we were confident we could do what was needed.”

Boston lost the first leg 1-0 and returned to a bumper crowd at Tattershall Road but unfortunately lost by the same scoreline.

Current first team manager Martyn Bunce could remember the vase run of 1994 as he attended both legs of the semi-final as a fan, “The crowds, I remember trying to get people into the ground was like mad at home. There were queues all the way out the car park.”

“The crowd was given as 1,785 which is the second biggest attendance in the club’s history”, says Ashberry.

“We moved the game to Sunday to work around a United game and although the crowd was good, it was very much neutral”, explained Sandall, “

He continued by saying, “The game was pretty boring and nothing like the way we’d played the rest of the season, which was some of the best we ever played in the history of the club. We lost with a whimper and the dressing room was silent for a good 30 minutes before I broke the silence telling them how proud they should be.”

Taunton would go onto lose the final at Wembley, 2-1, to Diss Town.

So far this season, Boston Town have faced Blackstones, Hucknall Town, Ingles and Stone Old Alleynians, winning 3-1 in the first three and a penalty shootout victory in the last round after a 1-1 draw.

There were some valiant efforts in the last round with goalkeeper Travis Portas saving all three penalties from the opposition from Stone and likewise Boston scored all their three.

First team manager Martyn Bunce feels confident about shootouts, having now won two in a row this season. He told me, “it’s a lottery when it gets to that stage when it gets to that stage, but it shows we have little bit left in us.”

“I think your more confident knowing you’ve got through two cup games by doing it that way”, he added.

Boston’s current longest serving player in the team, club legend and Assistant Manager, Lori Borbely, gave the same sort of vibe by saying, “With Travis in goal, our confidence is big if that was to happen but we will try and get the result in normal time.”

In the third round proper, the Poachers are set to face Worcester City away which is deemed to be a tough affair for United Counties League side. Worcester is top of currently second in their respective league and at the time of the draw, they had scored 39 goals in their last 10 games plus getting crowds over 500.

“We have done our homework”, Bunce told me, “We will set up to nullify their strengths and also exploit their weaknesses”.

Borbely feels that it’s going to be a very interesting game, “As a club we are taking it one game at a time and we are very much aware about the opposition”, Borbely told me, “We are going into the game without any pressure. I know this group of players very well now and I know we are more than capable of raising our game in these sort of games”.

“I like that it’s a team not from our division”, Bunce explained, “I’m pleased that we didn’t get a Lincoln United or an Eastwood. We didn’t know much about them (Worcester)… we do now!”

It’s sure to be tough encounter but the Poachers are 4 wins and a two-legged semi-final away from playing under the famous arch at the home of football. Can they continue to match the heroes of 1994 and progress to what will be the round of 32 in January?