As the club approaches it first anniversary I thought you might like to know about it's roots...
Some of the young guns at the club have been asking about the club history, and since they weren’t around to see the first green shoots of the fledgling Boston United sprout from the muddy scrap of grass where it all started I thought I’d fill you in on some of the dim, dusty details from those cold, dark days…
Way back in time, not long after Soccerstars started in the UK, an innocent but promising young player was spotted kicking a battered, old ball about on a field… He was given the chance to start his own club – and not really sure of himself or what he was doing, before he knew it he’d signed the papers to create Boston Utd FC. It was the raw beginnings of the club back in the dim, distant past, on 20 Feb 2011.
Initially times were tough – the young Bimbo bashed the ball about on a muddy field all by himself… but our hapless striker wasn’t on his own for long and soon a few other young lads joined in for a game. One of the first to play alongside him was a young Scots defender by the strange name of AJWFFC. Little did the young Bimbo realise what an important signing this was for the then still miniscule Boston United and how important he would come to be in the club’s history.
AJ as we called him for short, was soon to be followed by others. We signed a promising young goalkeeper by the name of IceCool. Cool by name, cool by nature – Ice didn’t say much, but in these early days really helped the team with a ‘live’ keeper instead of a useless ‘bot’.
The word started to get out and Bimbo ran a recruitment drive to attract more live players, recognising that this was the way forward and that the game was all about team work, not individual skill. Soon a young hero stepped forward by the name of Benito – a promising young midfielder, who pledged his life and allegiance to Boston Utd. Another young striker, called Canning, joined him the very same day. In those early days he was such a prolific goal-scorer for Boston, he was quickly nicknamed ‘The Cannon’ and was firing them in from all angles. We also gained a lively ‘junior’ by the name of Reize to play alongside Benito in midfield.
As the facilities slowly improved, so others were attracted to join the club. First, a wise and honourable grey-haired defender, who we now know simply as ‘HD’, came knocking and joined AJ in defence. The very same day there were two more arrivals in the shape of Chrispy Cox – another striker and a defender, unusually named ‘Rextheforgoten’. Boston were starting to have the makings of a side!
Within the first week of the club launching three further players joined – David Bendle, AlanUK and ‘Duly Noted’ – and before he knew it the young Bimbo was managing a full team of eleven players, with one substitute! To accommodate everyone’s individual skills and preferred positions, some players had to swop their roles. Bimbo himself moved to play in midfield to help control the young players there and DB (another midfielder) moved into a defensive role.
So our starting eleven, playing a standard 4-4-2 in those days, looked like this…
1. The Iceman
2. Rex 3. AJ 4. HD 5. DB
6. Duly 7. Benito 8. Bimbo 9. Reize
10. Cannon 11. Chrispy
Sub. AUK (Def).
Boston were United and the young team soon climbed the old league system and found themselves bouncing around the top of the then ‘second division’ and knocking on the door of the elite top league. In those days there were 64 teams in the first division and we were soon to join their ranks!!!
Still more players joined the team… we recruited a mad Irishman by the name of ‘DevilJim’ to play midfield and signed one John Wilson – then a young but promising striker. The squad now had three subs – one in defence, one midfield and one striker. This allowed Bimbo, the young Boston Utd player/manager to experiment with different formations and soon we assumed a more attacking 3-4-3 line up.
1. The Iceman (50% R68)
2. Rex (42% R336) 3. AJ (56% R125) 4. HD (55% R172)
5. Reize (59% R176) 6. Benito (47% R369) 7. Bimbo (70% R99) 8. DJ (47% R381)
9. JW (40% R547) 10. Cannon (61% R132) 11. Chrispy (55% R202)
Sub. AUK (Def) (36% R608); DB (Def) (34% R731); Duly (MF) (31% R1,219)
With the squad full and everyone training hard the team went from strength to strength. The competition for places meant that people were going the extra mile to improve their skills. The young Benito was often seen on the training ground early in the morning (before he went to school) and players like AJ, JW and Bimbo were often there last thing at night, doing what they could to improve their rankings.
Bimbo himself was in the top 100 MF and was soon followed by AJ in the top 100 Def, along with Ice who was in the top 70 GK’s in the league. Everything seemed to be going well for the young Boston side and we soon climbed into the top 30 of the First Division. But then dark clouds came over the Boston training ground…
Firstly the Iceman totally lost his cool and for some reason got rid of all his GK clothes… he was found running naked around the training ground and couldn’t (or wouldn’t) explain what was going on… In the crisis Bimbo donned the GK jersey and went between the sticks for the next few games. About the same time JW got the wanderlust and late one night, in an alcohol-fuelled, rash decision went off to join Sheffield Wednesday, saying he wanted regular first team football. If this was not bad enough DJ decided to hang up his boots early in his career and became our first ‘inactive player’. Things were to get worse still… following a game against Notts Reds the improving defender, AlanUK was tempted away by what turned out to be his ‘home’ town club and offered his apologies and left. Dark days indeed.
However, there was a new day dawning and new players came to join the club… first a young female came knocking at the training ground door. At first we all mistook her as the kit lady come to do the washing – but were quickly put right on that score! Previously the locker room was all male, testosterone charged area at Boston Utd and all of a sudden we had a young lady in our midst. It was of course, Gunny – Boston’s new talented GK and an able replacement for the not so cool Iceman in goal. A bold, young midfielder, called Jack Morgan also briefly joined us. A few positional changes ensued as BUFC adopted a new 3-5-2 formation and the new line up looked like this…
1. Gunny (92% R29)
2. Rex (72% R266) 3. AJ (103% R43) 4. HD (90% R87)
5. B’to(97% R103) 6.DN (86% R173) 7.DB (86% R171) 8.CC (83% R194) 9.JM (84% R185)
10. Cannon (90% R102) 11. Bimbo (117% R22)
Sub. Ice (Def) (30% R1,861); Reize (MF) (61% R543)
Chrispy moved into midfield and the bold Jack assumed Reize’s place in the starting eleven. The Iceman decided to swap roles to defender to let Gunny keep goal for the team since she was much better at it than him. The pressure was growing and Bimbo needed support and the wise, grey-haired chap HD stepped up as the new vice-captain of the club.
The new 3-5-2 formation was reaping dividends and soon BUFC were regularly playing in the top 20 of the First Division. With ‘The Gun’ in goal and ‘The Cannon’ up front things were going really well! Our ‘trusty Cannon’ made it to his century, scoring a new record, one hundred goals for the club. Bimbo’s move to join the strike-force was also working well and I was soon catching him up too. It was about this time that the young Reize was lent out ‘on loan’ to a team called ‘The Mighty Hoops’ to get some match time – it was a tearful departure from the training ground and those who remember him will miss his jovial, but often totally unintelligible comments in the club’s chat area! I particularly remember his suggestion that we should play 4-4-3 in one game!
On we marched United and more players came to join the Boston tea party… our three-man defence gained another player in the shape of Dan Tromans and the mighty FinDolphin boosted our midfield – he had skills of 179% and was ranked 11th MF in the league. At the time I also got back in touch with JW, who had moved on from Sheff Wed to play at Birmingham City – once a powerful team in the league. He was persuaded to come back to his roots at Boston and with this squad we rose to the dizzy heights of the top 10 in Div. 1.
Happy with life and the way things were going, little did we realise how things would change as more dark clouds loomed once again over the club…
First it was Chrispy, soon followed by our hero Benito, and then worst of all, the mighty Fin who all ended up going inactive on us. More were to follow when DB hung up his boots too. The once mighty Boston squad were being decimated and Bimbo had to turn scout once again and go out on a new recruitment drive…
All this at a time when the new league system was about to begin – we’d been promised it for weeks on the forum and here we were without a full and active team again. We weren’t the only one suffering through inactivity though and with a bit of careful hunting around I was able to find some new player to strengthen the team.
So just as before, when dark times happen at the club new signings comes along and this time we managed to pick up our new midfielders Gavin, NumbNutz and Mickey and a plucky little female defender called Iama.
1. Gunny
2. Iama 3. AJ 4. HD 5. Dan
5. Mickey 6. DN 7. Gavin 8. NumbNutz
10. JW 11. Bimbo
Unfortunately, our once ‘trusty Cannon’ was starting to go a bit rusty now and couldn’t compete for his regular, first team place any longer. Stuck on the bench he decided to go out on loan instead to get fame from match play. And so it was we started the newly created league system…
It has to be said things didn’t start well and some of the new recruits must have wondered what they’d got themselves into by joining Boston Utd? Three straight defeats to start weren’t good for moral and already the chat saw mention of avoiding relegation if we could?
Things were to get even worse when JW upped and left to join our League 1 rivals The Toon Terrors! We’d just been beaten 1-6 away at the Toon and JW was tempted by the thought of fame and glory at a (then) top six team that he signed a transfer deal and left us in the lurch… btw, our one goal that evening at the Toon was scored by the diminutive Iama!
Fortunately a rapid replacement was found in the grandly named Phoenix Blaze – an ex-WonderBoys striker and just like his name, BUFC began its rise from the ashes up the league! We also made another new signing – our first ‘international’ player – the Italian midfield maestro, Gennaro and BUFC managed to climb up the league to finish 6th in our first season.
We’ve just completed our second ‘full’ season now, with Bimbo stepping aside to let AJ take the reigns as the club captain at Boston Utd and we have recently been joined by our second international and ex-Bravehearts player, Undo. The season saw us build upon our success from Season 1 and we were never out of the top 10 in the league – ending up matching our finishing position of 6th once again.
…and the rest as they say is history..!!! C’mon Boston… we are United..!!!
Written by the club historian, statistician and founder, Bimbo (a loyal and proud Bostonian!!!)
