MY YORK STREET: Late FA Cup drama, a foggy battle, Jim Conde's header against Derby County and a manager on his pushbike are among Richard O. Smith's Boston United memories

My first game: Boston 1 Macclesfield 1 in 1971. The Pilgrim’s goalscorer was player-manager Jim Smith.

My favourite game: Boston 2 Hartlepool 1 in November 1971. Great FA Cup tie and a proper giantkillling - although, in retrospect, a rather puny giant. Oddly, Hartlepool officially changed their name shortly before this match from Hartlepools to Hartlepool – presumably keen to ensure opponents would only expect to host one, not multiple, Hartlepools. Hopefully Scunthorpe have no plans to drop their ‘s’, nor Hitchin to add one.

My least favourite game: Boston 0 Bloody Runcorn 6 in 1988. Sorry…thought I was ready, but it’s still too soon to talk about it.

My strangest game: Boston 2 Altrincham 5 in February 1980. A day so foggy that playing conditions resembled being inside a kipper smokehouse. Players would occasionally flash into view through the perennially thickening murk whenever within 10 yards of my vantage point. Every quarter of an hour the public address system would click on and announce (word for word as I recall): “I’ve just been informed that Altrincham apparently scored a fourth goal five minutes ago.”

My happiest memory: Most Pilgrims fans would say the 2-0 victory at Hayes in 2002 that captured promotion to the Football League. But that’s trumped by Boston versus Hitchin Town at York Street in December 1973. It’s the second Round Proper of the FA Cup. Boston are hanging on to the slenderest of 1-0 leads. Ninety-three minutes are on the clock. Preserve this lead and the thirrd Round Proper beckons with the biggest names in the land. Hitchin have a free kick in a dangerous area on the left flank. They pack the box for the inevitable last roll of the dice. Now it’s all about the correct delivery. Hitchin’s freekick taker places the ball purposefully, his expression locked in concentration, before raising an arm to convey a coded signal. Tension is rising. He runs up. Slips. Falls on his derriere and somehow slices the white ball in completely the wrong direction. We watch it rise like a second moon ascending over the main stand for a throw-in.

My worst memory: Witnessing sickening 1970s football violence. At Kettering (predictable) and at Retford (less predictable) in the FA Cup. On the pitch it was losing against the run of play to Portsmouth 0-1 in the FA Cup third Round in 1972. Images of the referee pointing to his watch when cowardly Pompey fans retained the ball in the crowd to waste time, are burnt onto my memory’s hard drive; alongside Bobby Svarc - the only Boston player specifically referenced in a Half Man Half Biscuit song – hitting the inside of the Portsmouth post moments before the end.

My favourite goal: The diving header Jim Conde scored in a 1974 FA Cup replay against Derby County. Not as we’d have required a replay had Derby irrigated their pitch properly and Alan Tewley’s goal-bound header hadn’t stuck in the mud on the line in the goalless first game. Incidentally, Boston’s 0-0 draw at Derby was exactly the same scoreline achieved by Juventus in European Cup (now Champions League) semi-final at the Baseball Ground a few months earlier.

My favourite player: Paul Wilson was a major reason for Boston’s top-three finish in 1988-89 and it remains a continuing shame his clever approach play and sublime finishing skills went on to benefit Yeovil’s push for a Football League place ahead of Boston’s. In much more recent times, Kabongo Tshimanga is obviously a huge talent and rightly received an England C call-up within a year of departing Boston.

My favourite manager: Jim Smith. But I also fondly recall Gordon Bolland because when he was Boston’s player/manager you’d see him around town on his pushbike – in the days when pro footballers still possessed a functioning sense of reality! I recollect him once winning Match of the Day’s Goal of the Month with a staggering strike for Millwall against Bristol City in 1971; Millwall were in dark blue, Bristol in dark red – to be honest, it wasn’t a great viewing experience on a black and white TV set!

Best opposition player: I recall Stan Collymore playing for Stafford Rangers at York Street in the 1990-91 season. He scored a solo goal after winning a two-horse race with Dave Cusack. Even allowing for the fact that had Cusack been any slower moss would have likely grown on him, Collymore’s pace and finishing was something to behold. A few short years later Collymore joined Liverpool from Notts Forest for a then-English record transfer fee.

Best away side: Oxford City’s 7-2 win at York Street in 2014 was an incredible display by an opposition side packed with several top Spanish players attracted by the university city.

I'll miss York Street because: It was a focal and communal centre for the club and town – an unashamedly old-fashioned proper town centre ground. You can walk to York Street from anywhere in Boston including the rail station. Getting to the new ground for the carless is a headache. Will there be adequate footpath, designated cycle track and public transport provision? Will United be drawing away at Champions League semi-finalists again? I fear the answer to both those questions is the same.

Richard O. Smith edited the Pilgrims fanzine From Behind Your Fences. His new book The Best Ladled Pans of Rice and Penne (Signal Books, £8.99) is out now.

Previous MY York Street contributions: Andy Butler, Roger Smith, Christian James, Ken Fox, Jonathan Van Tam.

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