The Durham lads pre-kick off.
Durham City left Ferens park, their home for the 43 years after their reformation, in the '93-'94 season. They ground shared with Chester-le-Street Town for a year before moving into their current ground, the Arnott Stadium. Successive promotions in the '07-'08 and '08-'09 seasons found them in the Northern Premier League's top flight. An ambitious, well backed club, Durham were eyeing a third promotion in three years.
The club's aspirations were dealt a hammer blow as the season started with the news that, due to their all weather pitch, the football conference would not admit the club, regardless of where they finished the season. This news resulted in Durham's backers pulling out and left the North Eastern club battling for financial survival at the expense of their league season. The cost of this has been heavy. Players left and the team was filled with youngsters. At the time of writing Durham have played 28 and lost all of them, conceding 137 goals in the process. Durham were also handed a 6 point penalty and had their manager suspended for fielding a player under a false name and relegation is certain. Despite all this the club has survived and that, it must be remembered, is the important thing.
This wasn't the first time Boston United had visited the Arnott Stadium during the course of the season and that seems as good a place to start as any...
On the 3rd of October 2009 Boston made their first attempt at playing Durham. Around 100 people made the journey to the North East. As the final few supporters were rolling into the club bar the game was cancelled due to strong winds. Accusations and counter accusations flew about who was responsible for the game being called off. Understandably the Boston fans were a bit miffed about a weather related postponement on the much maligned 'all weather pitch', especially considering the time, cost and effort of making the trip in the first place. Ultimately the afternoon was spent in one of the most expensive Lloyd's bars that I have ever had the misfortune of entering, before a lengthy trip home.
Since then Durham have been on the end of a 10-0 thrashing at York St. Their players came out of that day with a great deal of respect from the Boston supporters. Not once did a head drop and their keeper was arguably the man of the match. There was a well deserved post-game standing ovation for the lads in the Pilgrim Lounge. This went some way to allaying the trepidation and bad feeling following the October debacle and so it was that, bleary eyed on a Saturday morning, around 150 of us made our way North.
Several hours, and a large proportion of the A1 later we arrived at Durham. The greeting we got was nothing less than marvellous. The Durham fans seemed genuinely pleased to see us (a novel experience for Boston). There was a great atmosphere in the bar as the fans mingled. On a personal note it was great to meet Danny, who I speak to occasionally on Twitter, and his mate Mark. These two lads embodied the spirit of non-league football, enjoying their time in the NPL regardless of the circumstances.
Kick off came around quickly and Boston got off to a sluggish start. Durham penned us back for quite a while. It took 19mins for the break through to be made, Church providing a throughball for Weir-Daley to convert. Durham then piled on the pressure with several chances before equalising in the 35th minute through a stunning 30 yard drive from Winter, cue mad celebrations from Danny, Mark and the rest of the Durham lot. It looked like things would be all square at half time until Weir-Daley converted a useful Ryan Semple cross deep in added time.
Durham celebrate the equaliser.
Spencer Weir-Daley scores his second.
The second half kicked off with the Pilgrims supporters hoping for a little more out of their team. This was provided with two goals in ten minutes. Semple scoring on his debut followed by Weir-Daley completing his hat-trick. At 4-1 up there was only one team in it, Boston kept pressuring for more goals but were denied by some resolute defending and some shoddy finishing.
Spencer Weir-Daley and Danny Sleath get the second half underway.
Ryan Semple running the wing.
It was a good result overall with Durham making vast improvements at home over the last few months. With the top two teams drawing and North Ferriby slipping to defeat at the hands of Kendal it was important for Boston to get the three points, even if it wasn't the best performance of the year. Credit to Durham (definitely not the worst team I've seen this year) who's players, supporters, stewards, officials and chairman's daughter (DAMN!!!) epitomise everything that is good about the non-league game. Can we play you every week!?
