Pilgrims' Ambition is More Than a Feeling

Hopperational Details
Date & Venue	Saturday 25 September at The Jakemans Community Stadium
Result	Boston United 2 Guiseley 1
Competition	National League North (Step 2)
Hopstats	Ground 729 on the lifetime list is not a random choice. After my recent attention to The 92 & 115, there is only one sequence of fixtures for ticking off my three remaining Step 2 grounds on consecutive Saturdays to restore The 158, so I am here. It would normally have been The 160, but the combination of Bury and Macclesfield Town folding, alongside the disruption of promotion and relegation during the pandemic, means that the National League, and National League South, are running with an odd number of teams this season.
Context
13th v 15th before kickoff. Both teams have similar mixed records and sit in mid-table. Boston will be looking for a third consecutive home win to follow on from a 6-0 hammering of Corby Town in the FA Cup last weekend. Guiseley also won in the cup, winning away at Colne.
In One Sentence
Workmanlike rather than impressive, but a win is a win.
So What?
A move of one place for each team, up to 12th and down to 16th respectively. Both have home FA Cup ties next weekend. Boston United host East Thurrock United and Guiseley host Blyth Spartans.
Pre-match Entertainment
One of the reasons for taking car rather than train today was to be able to make a morning visit to the nearby Bubblecar Museum in Langrick. What a magnificent collection, with the distinctive and unusual vehicles supplemented by collections of furniture, toys, kitchen utensils and other domestic artefacts. It is well worth an hour of your time if you are ticking off this new ground this year.   As I then drove towards the town centre, clusters of people at the roadside, many with cameras, indicated that something unusual was about to happen. I parked up and joined them, and a discreet enquiry established both that, no, I’m not from round here, and the Flying Scotsman was imminent, on its way to Skegness. Well, I had a glimpse of it last Tuesday evening, and it would have been rude not to wait until it had passed by today.  I then had a pleasant walk around some of Boston’s town centre and side streets. The town has an active port (shellfish, I believe) and an interesting religious and political history with connections to the settlement of what is now the United States. Walking down the footpath alongside the A16 to the ground takes around 30-40 minutes. There is a shuttle bus as an alternative, but I wanted the exercise. It’s perfectly OK in daylight on a dry day – it’s not a walk I would particularly want to do in the rain or in darkness, or with young children. You have to cross and re-cross the busy A16 as you get close to the stadium.
Match Report
Guiseley started well and it was only a superb block by Luke Shiels on Jordan Thewlis that stopped them taking an early lead. Shiels was impressive throughout that first half. Kaine Felix had the visitors’ second chance with a one-one-one breakthrough but a defender got back just in time to disrupt his shot. When Boston took the lead after 14 minutes it was somewhat against the run of play. An excellent trap and turn in midfield by Danny Elliott allowed him to fashion a move down the right flank through Jordan Preston and when the ball came in Jordan Burrow was in position to score. The game entered a spell of mutual cancellation. Patient Guiseley buildup in the modern fashion was met with good Boston defensive organisation, and they themselves looked dangerous on the break. Andi Thanoj sent in a fierce strike, but too high, on one such occasion. The rest of the scoring was completed in a two-minute spell before half-time. With 38 minutes on the clock, a misplaced clearance from home keeper George Sykes-Kenworthy left him out of position and an empty net for Thewlis To roll home the equaliser from distance. However, Boston were back in front almost immediately. Keeper Luke Jackson did well initially to block a shot from Connor Dimaio but the ball bounced up for a free header for Fraser Preston to score what turned out to be the winner. Just after the break, Guiseley hit the post with a neatly-worked freekick routine from the training ground, but as the half wore on, a third Boston goal began to look more likely as the visitors ran out of ideas. A flick from Burrow rolled just wide of the post, at the end of a few minutes of sustained pressure. It was a game that rather fizzled out rather than reached a crescendo, but a win is a win.
Match Pix
During the pandemic I tend to stay in one of the quieter corners of the ground, hence the lack of variety in the pix this season.
Ground Pix
This is a classy new build with features that remind the hopper of similar developments at Aveley and AFC Fylde, for example. Plus Rushden and Diamonds, of course, and Boston United, like the others, will need to get up a tier sooner rather than later. The ambition is clearly there. It’s an excellent playing surface. On balance you can understand why they moved away from their previous town centre position, with a compromise over location. There is scope for further development on the fourth side.  Some groundhoppers talk about “proper” old grounds but for me these are the standards that future generations will rightly expect. You never catch them talking about “proper” old school buildings for their children, to make a comparison with my own field. Hopefully readers will pick up the 1970s musical reference hidden in the blogpost title. It was initially going to be called Transports of Delight but on balance my days out are more about the football than the cars, trains, boats and planes.   The floodlights of the old ground are still there, for now
Goalkeeper Top Colour Stats Update
Usually accompanied by a pre-match prediction on Twitter just before kickoff. Working towards being able to compute a respectable statistical significance test by the end of the season. The full keeper top performance table from my last 230 matches is here, on this separate page.  Today, it was two shades of Green facing each other, and neither kept a clean sheet. Once again the league table of colours remains unchanged. Pre-match Prediction based on Keeper Top Colour: Prediction: Draw Was the prediction correct? No % of correct predictions so far 49% (42 from 85) Based on conventional 3pts for a win, 1pt for a draw, but also -1pt for a goal conceded (GC) and +5pts for a clean sheet (CS).  Colours ranked on a points per game (PPG) basis. The odd decimal places were caused either by undeniable half-and-half tops or lower league sub keepers in a different colour.  The Fire Cracker colour was confirmed with the help of the social media team at Dulux UK.  All of this arises from a comment attributed to Petr Cech (and supported by anonymous scientists of some description) that orange is the best colour for a goalkeeper because it changes the behaviour of other players around the box. It is supposedly because of an innate primeval human reaction to the colour and the colour “spreads” more in the vision of a striker at the key moment of decision. Genius or garbage? The evidence is gathering here, and is leaning towards the latter.
What Next?
Follow @GrahamYapp on Twitter! The provisional plan has been revised to York City v Whitby Town in the FA Cup next Saturday, followed by Gloucester City v Bradford the following weekend. Always subject to weather, roadworks and Covid19 of course, and now also on the availability of fuel for the Yappmobile.