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photos courtesy of Stephen Gray

The ground is located next to the cricket ground in New Road. This can be reached off Hall Street which is the high street of Long Melford along the B1064. Turning off into a very narrow St Catherine’s Road and then a right turn into New Road. The ground is situated on the right just past the road to the cricket club. We did get some inkling we were approaching the St Catherine’s Road turn when we saw the Boston Town team coach parked up on Hall Road.

A new ground for me and an enthusiastic set up for this F.A. Cup tie.

The ground has all the club house, dressing rooms and stand on one side, with the dug outs over the adjacent side in front of a large hedge that separates the football ground from the cricket club. There is also a covered standing area behind the far goal which has lost half of the roof and is in need of some repair. There is a concrete walk way around the ground but it does get a bit tight to walk around the dug outs.

Prior to start of the game the fly past of a WW2 Lancaster bomber heralded the arrival of the teams onto field. Good timing or what!

In the game Boston proved too much for the ECL 1 side scoring an early goal after the home side had put them under pressure from the kick off. A second goal on 39 minutes put the visitors in command at the break. The home side had no intention of going down without a fight and put themselves back into the game with five minutes of the restart. Two further goals from the visitors put them 4-1 up but the home side never gave up and claimed a consolation goal on 86 minutes. Boston however had had the last say in stoppage time with substitute Mason notching his second of the half.

The programme was excellent value for £1 with an eight page shell which included Long Melford's history and some coloured advert pages. Stapled inside this was a 32 page programme which had all you needed to know about the game and more. Pen pictures of both sides’ Boston Town close up, ECL club notes, pages on the reserves and colts sides and plenty more on a good lay out and well printed. 4* - very good.

Then after the game we made it back to Rye House Speedway for the meeting against Reading Racers, excellent day with no rain for a change.