The journey man! Liam Marrs happy to make 400 mile round trips for Boston United home matches

The right back faces a round trip close to 400 miles for each home game, from the north east to the Jakemans Stadium.

But those road trips aren’t showing any signs of slowing Marrs down as he continues to be one of the Pilgrims’ most reliable performers on the pitch this season.

“I don’t let it affect me,” says the 23-year-old, when asked about his commute, suggesting that blocking out the seven-hours spent on the road for those matches in Lincolnshire is the best way to cope with his journeys.

“It could affect me, but I think that if I’m going to come all this way there’s no point doing it half hearted, I have to put the effort in.”

Marrs isn’t the first player to clock up the miles to pull on the amber and black of United.

Rene Steer and Jake Hall were among those who would commute from London last season, but eventually the travelling became too much for Steer - particularly as many matches were played much further north than Boston - while Hall’s TV career began to take up more of his time.

Marrs, however, is taking a more pragmatic approach.

He added: “Travelling is part and parcel of many jobs.

“I don’t wake up as lively as I did as a kid, but I just make sure I do my part.

“Everything’s a long way, most games feel like away games. But I don’t mind, it’s football and I love playing football.

“If it’s Lowestoft away or another long trip away it doesn’t really matter, you just have to get on with it.”

The Lowestoft contest was a particular sickener for Marrs, up at 5am on Boxing Day only to be substituted after 45 minutes as the Pilgrims slumped to a 3-0 defeat in Suffolk... around 300 miles in each direction, or an average of 13 miles per 60 seconds on the pitch.

“When I saw we were playing Lowestoft on Boxing Day I thought I’d have to set off on Christmas Eve,” joked Marrs, who meets up with teammate Grant Roberts in Leeds for the second half of his journey.

“It’s an early start but you have to keep it out your head. It’s all mental.

“I want to play football. I meet Grant in Leeds, it’s not like I’m alone the whole time.”

During the summer Marrs toyed with the idea of playing for a club closer to home.

But the Sunderland youth academy product, who first linked up with the club on loan from the Black Cats, believed that Boston was the best place to push himself.

“I had a few offers from local teams but I didn’t want to drop down a level,” Marrs explained.

“I wanted to stay as high as I could, and with us doing so well with the play-offs last season I wanted to stay at Boston because I think we’ve got a good enough team to stay up there.

“We didn’t have the best of starts, but things change all the time in this league.

“We all want the same thing. We all want to get promoted with Boston United.”