Leamington 0 Boston United 2 (25th March 2023)
Sometimes you are just set up for disappointment. First the pub I chose for a pre-game spot of lunch didn’t stretch to much beyond bags of peanuts in the food stakes. Then, the picturesque windmill I thought could be a mild diversion – bearing in mind Leamington used to play at The Windmill Ground in years gone by – turned out to have had its sails removed, and now just looked like a Victorian folly on top of a hill.
And when I managed to miss Boston’s early goal, distracted for a few crucial seconds, I was convinced that would be the only goal of the game. A look to the write-up’s title makes it clear I was wrong on that score, but more of that later.
Leamington’s old Windmill Ground was next to the Windmill Pub in the town, which is at least still there, even if the football ground, and windmill, aren’t. With Leamington recent voted the best place to live in the West Midlands, it might have been a better pre-game option. The old ground was sold for housing in 1988, and when the club re-emerged from a 12 year hiatus, it found itself now based among open fields way out of town.
Without a rich benefactor, Leamington have made the best of a poor situation, building up the ground as they progressed up the leagues. Two decent ends help, one covered, one not, although neither are helped by people standing by the fence, directly behind the goals. With me opting for the end Leamington were attacking in both halves though, this didn’t prove to be too much of a issue.
The long term future of the club looks to be pinned on moving back to a site back in the town, to a ground looking very much like a black and amber version of Fylde’s place, and things appear to be progressing, if not as fast as hoped.
Short term priorities are concerned with Leamington’s precarious position in the National North table, sat just above the relegation zone, three points behind a Boston side who have found their move to their decent new stadium hasn’t quite boosted fortunes as hoped.
With both teams normally playing in amber and black, telling the fans apart wasn’t easy, but a fair number had made their way across from Lincolnshire. No such problems on the field, where Boston sported day-glo pink shirts of a shade that to me that would look garish if it was the colour of a tart’s lipstick, but no doubt sells well – although I didn’t see too many away fans wearing one.
It was a potentially intriguing encounter, with one of the division’s worst defences (Boston, 60 goals against) meeting one of the least effective attacks (Leamington 35 goals is less than one per game) making it a strange case of the stoppable force meeting the moveable object.
In this relegation six-pointer, it was Boston who started brightest, firing a shot narrowly wide very early on, then taking the lead in the 8th minute. I was still wandering through the healthy 1123 crowd, looking for a good vantage point, when a ball was chipped in the back post and nodded in. I heard the cheer from the other end but saw nothing, and had the horrible feeling that would be the only goal of the game, as happened when visiting another game in these parts, missing both goals in a Tamworth match queuing up for a burger.
At least at Leamington they have the good sense to have the burger van in an area where you can see the pitch. They also had another refreshment kiosk, which seemed to serve sweets rather than cooked food. I wonder how many have queued up hoping for a burger and chips, only to come away with a Curly-Wurly and a packet of Revels.
After that early good spell, Leamington pretty much took over for the rest of the game. The problem was that despite territorial dominance, you could kind of see why they’d only managed 35 goals. They attacked the Boston goal like a teenage boy fumbling with his girlfriend’s bra-strap – plenty of enthusiasm without much idea of what to do. The result was a fair number of half chances, but very few clear openings.
Even if I am old-fashioned enough to believe teams who wear fluorescent kits deserve to lose every game they play, I have to give credit to Boston’s defending, which was almost a masterclass in soaking up pressure. They weren’t really doing much attacking themselves, but always looked comfortable. The gallows humour from the terraces, interspersed with elucidating a dislike of Banbury, hinted at a lack of confidence in the home side, but it often came at times when the home team needed positive support the most.
The game was settled with 13 minutes left in a way that caught most people by surprise. A ball forward was hooked back towards the Leamington goal from near the halfway line, and with the keeper stranded, and maybe a little wind assistance, it dropped into the net to make it 2-0. Many of the home players sunk to their knees in disbelief, as any hope of getting something from the game was snuffed out by that one extraordinary moment of football.
Understandably the game kind of petered out from there, with Boston able to sit back and enjoy a job very well done, taking a very large step towards securing their place in the division for next season. Leamington will be disappointed with the result, which dropped them into the bottom four, but also the chance to showcase the appeal of supporting a local team on a day when no fans were going off to the West Midlands’ more usual bigger footballing lures.
With six games to go, there’s still time to rescue the situation, but I guess the focus for the club has to be the ground move. Maybe then four-figure crowds could be the norm for Leamington, even if plans are a little behind schedule. For a club that got mothballed for over a decade, patience probably comes with the territory.
Stadiums and Cities 