COLUMN: Boston United prove you can't keep a good side down

It seems that you just can’t keep a good team down.

Boston United needed just 45 seconds to bounce back from their New Year’s Day misery as Dominic Knowles slotted home at the Horsfall Stadium.

Latching on to Jake Wright’s through ball, the forward took a touch before slipping his effort below the onrushing Joe Green and into the net before being mobbed by his team-mates.

Simon Ainge added his first league goal for the club later in that first half against Bradford Park Avenue on Saturday before the hosts replied, forcing the Pilgrims to scrap and battle for three valuable points.

It has often been claimed the measure of a team isn’t how they win, but how they respond to defeat.

Well, Craig Elliott’s side have now followed all seven of this season’s National League North reverses with a victory.

The wounded beast poses a greater threat, and that was only emphasised by a glance at the league table come full time.

United were up to sixth and back in the play-off spots, with games in hand on many around them.

They now sit fifth as they built upon that win with a draw against Curzon Ashton in midweek.

Things look healthy and certainly feel very different to January 1, when league leaders King’s Lynn left with a convincing 3-0 victory.

Discovering you’re not as close to the top team as you’d hoped hurts enough.

But to lose in such a manner to an old rival – their jubilant and jeering supporters packing the York Street end –always leaves a bitter taste.

The third goal, which compounded United’s misery, didn’t help either.

Keeper Peter Crook’s poor clearance fell kindly for old boy Adam Marriott, who slipped in team-mate Michael Gash for the simplest of finishes.

But Crook, perhaps epitomising his side this weekend and since, stood firm on Saturday, making two vital saves that could have been the difference between a rise to the play-offs or defeat at the basement boys who had lost their last five matches.

Bradford could easily have been a banana skin.

United could have licked their wounds following that Linnets loss and minds could have drifted to Rochdale’s FA Cup tie with Newcastle United and thoughts of ‘what might have been’.

But, instead, the side delivered a professional, fitting response, and a reminder that there’s still everything to play for this season.