We look back at epic Non-League moments – Boston’s title duel with Dagenham & Redbridge kicks us off
Two huge characters with a hatred of losing – the result was typically explosive
IN THE first of a brand new series in The Non-League Paper this summer, we take a look back to the 2001-02 season to relive the bitter and highly-controversial battle between Garry Hill’s Dagenham & Redbridge and Steve Evans’ Boston United as they went head-to-head for a place in the Football League
MARCH 4, 2002. Dagenham & Redbridge have just beaten rivals Boston United 1-0 at the Victoria Stadium to sail six points clear at the Conference summit.
Moments later, Steve Evans storms from the tunnel. Boston’s explosive manager is red-faced, apoplectic with rage.
“Dagenham should be ashamed of themselves,” he spits into the assorted microphones. “They went on a lap of honour and sang ‘We are the Champions’ in the tunnel. It was totally disrespectful.”
Garry Hill, the Daggers’ own strongarm leader, is in no mood to play peacemaker. Boston, he sneers, lack the “power, bottle and charisma” to rein his side in.
Like everyone else, Hill probably thinks the title race is over. In fact, it has just gone nuclear. And over the next three months, a cocktail of bitter insults, accusations and financial skulduggery will captivate both the Conference and the country.
For both managers, the season began with soaring expectations. Back in the Conference for the first time in four seasons, Dagenham had finished third in 2000-01 and also come within four minutes of kicking top-flight Charlton out of the FA Cup.
Boston, transformed from Southern League underachievers following Evans’ arrival from Stamford in 1998, had just gone full-time and flashed the chequebook.
Highly-rated centre-half Paul Ellender cost £65,000 from Scarborough. Striker Daryl Clare was signed from Grimsby. Most eye-catching of all was Mike Marsh, the former Liverpool playmaker who arrived from Southport.
There were even tales – gleefully disseminated by Evans – of an attempt to lure Stan Collymore out of retirement.
“Signing Paul Ellender really set the intentions for the season,” recalls Boston keeper Paul Bastock. “He was a leader and what kickstarted all the lads. We only heard about that the night before. He rocked up on the Saturday and it was, ‘Right, let’s go and win this league’.
Triumphalism
Dagenham’s talisman was Mark Stein, who just three years earlier had been playing for Ruud Gullit’s Chelsea in the Premier League. The 35year-old netted 24 times, tied with Clare for the Golden Boot.
“Stein was on fire that season,” says Mike Wainwright, long-time Dagenham fan and editor of the Digger Dagger website. “He was a lot better than the level but he was playing for us while doing his physiotherapy course. He was mustard in front of goal, he really was.”
From the start of what quickly became a twohorse race, barbs flew. When Dagenham hit top spot in October, Evans accused Hill of premature triumphalism.
“For me, the leader will change many times,” he said. “But after Garry’s comments, all the other managers might as well put their flip-flops on and get ready for the summer.”
This theme would reemerge several months later. Beaten 4-3 by Hereford in a game televised live on Sky, Evans pointed at the lens and addressed his rival.
“We may have lost here today,” he said, lip trembling. “But let me tell you something Garry, it’s not all over yet, mate!”
Upstairs in the studio, where he was working as an analyst, Hill smiled as dressing room cameras showed Evans laying into his troops. “Nerves are going to play a big part,” he said. “As we’ve seen tonight, there are those that can handle it and those that can’t.”
Other jabs were less overt. After nine goals in 12 games for Boston, striker Ken Charlery was poached by Dagenham in October. Evans responded by snatching Jim Rodwell, the Rushden & Diamonds defender who was on loan at Victoria Road.
Rodwell would later accuse Dagenham’s players of acting “like a Sunday side” after that infamous victory at the Vic.
“Well,” wrote Evans in the following week’s programme notes. “Is that not the level where Garry Hill played his football?”
Accord everything ing to Boston’s Mark Clifford, Evans’ outbursts were calculated, the controversy deliberately manufactured.
“Steve was fantastic at creating something out of nothing,” said the right-back, who missed just two games for the Pilgrims that season.
Tubthumping
“Wherever we went, there was always an issue that would get our backs up. We would go to places thinking the fans were against us, the officials were against us, the pundits were against us. But it made us perform.”
Charlery, who stays in touch with both men, isn’t so sure. “Between Garry and Steve, there wasn’t much love lost,” says the 52-year-old, who last worked as manager of Ware.
“They were two completely different characters. Steve saw it all as theatre. Garry was a bit more serious.
“What united them was a hatred of losing. That’s why I think they clashed. And because they didn’t get on, they said was hyped and blown out of proportion.”
Charlery says the infamous ‘lap of honour’ story is a case in point. “Every time we played at home – win, lose or draw – we always did half a pitch, just to show our appreciation to the crowd,” he explains. “That’s all it was. As for the singing and shouting, I don’t know.”
Whatever happened that March afternoon, Evans’ indignant tubthumping worked. The following day, the Scot printed out a fixture list and told the Press exactly where Dagenham would drop points.
It didn’t work out quite like that, but thanks to a hostile run of six straight away matches, the Daggers’ lead gradually evaporated.
“It was very frustrating,” recalls Charlery. “We’d been top almost all season then slipped up in a couple of home games. Nothing dramatic. They just edged ahead and we couldn’t pull them back. Every time we won, they won.” By the final day, Boston led the table on goal difference and needed only to match their rivals’ result.
Once again, Evans couldn’t resist stoking the fire. “The word has come out from a source at Chester that they are going to play a weakened side at Dagenham on the final day,” he claimed.
Ludicrous rumours even circulated that Daggers had paid for Chester’s players to have a night out on the eve of the match. Stephen Vaughan, Chester’s chairman, was so incensed that he threatened legal action.
Aided or not, Dagenham were scuppered. Though Hill’s men won 3-0, goals from Simon Weatherstone and Ray Warburton earned Boston a 2-0 victory against Hayes. The Pilgrims had reached the promised land.
“The players are going out there to do a lap of honour, because laps of honour are for champions,” yelled a Champagne-soaked Evans. His words would later appear on T-shirts in the club shop.
Bastock recalls celebrating in London – or trying to. “It was the worst night,” he laughs. “No one would let us in anywhere so we ended up in Chinatown drinking beer out of China tea pots!
“On the Monday the club treated us to a meal. We got on the coach, had more beer and were all plastered by the time we got into Boston to go around the ground clapping the fans. I accidentally retired live on Sky I was so drunk!”
Injustice
Over in East London, Hill still refused to accept defeat. “We beat them twice, finished on the same points and lost fewer games than anybody else,” he said. “To me, we won the league.”
That sense of injustice would only intensify when, two weeks later, police raided York Street and arrested both Evans and chairman Pat Malkinson.
Several weeks earlier, routine FA checks had unearthed something fishy in the club’s accounts. Graham Bean, the FA’s compliance officer, then began an investigation that eventually proved Boston had lodged false contracts for six players, including Charlery and Marsh.
The scam was astoundingly simple. Marsh, for instance, was asked to sign a contract worth £1,000-a-week, plus two blank copies for ‘administrative purposes’.
Evans then doctored the blanks to show that Marsh was paid £100-a-week before sending one each to the FA and Inland Revenue. In total, Boston deprived the taxman of £245,000, all used to cover the crippling cost of going full-time.
On July 19, the FA met to decide Boston’s fate. Evans was suspended for 12 months, Malkinson for 24. Yet to widespread shock, the Pilgrims were allowed to keep their place in the League, landing a £100,000 fine and four-point deduction for the 2002-03 season. “Laughable,” said Hill. “Boston have been allowed to cheat. How can you deduct four points from a League season when they broke the rules in the Conference? This is not justice.” His sentiments were backed by Graham Ranson, a spokesman for HMRC. “By their actions Malkinson and Evans not only committed fraud,” he said, “they also achieved for Boston United an unfair advantage over other clubs who operated within the law.” Jon Cruddas, MP for Dagenham, even raised the issue in the House of Commons. But while sympathy was widespread, the decision stood. Fifteen years on, the hurt remains but the anger has dissipated. “We didn’t feel that justice had been done,” said Charlery. “It was people in suits making decisions who hadn’t even kicked a ball. But what does anger do? It doesn’t change the decision. All you can do is crack on.”
And that’s what Dagenham did. Five years later, John Still led the Daggers into League Two at the expense of a financially ruined Boston.
The Pilgrims – pariahs in the Football League – were subsequently expelled from the Conference Premier after failing to exit administration and have yet to return. Thankfully for those who have worked to rebuild the club’s image, the stigma is fading.
Evans, now in charge of Mansfield, no longer talks of his Boston days. “No one has apologised more than me,” said the 54-year-old, who, along with Malkinson, was convicted of tax evasion in 2006 for his part in the scam.
“No one was punished more. I made a mistake. Would I make that same mistake again? I’d rather jump out of a plane without a parachute. I totally regret it. It was embarrassing to me and, much worse, to my family.”
Merit
For Bastock, though, nothing will tarnish his memories of that season. “It’s the funniest year of my life,” he says. “The characters. The stories. “We had a drinking club on Wednesdays and the first hour of training was all banter. Evans turned a blind eye to it because he could see the bond it created with the lads. He knew that team spirit beats ability every time. They were wonderful times. “And the fact is, those (financial) things went on at other clubs, before us and after us. Don’t try and tell me other clubs didn’t do that. Boston were just the scapegoats. “It overshadowed the biggest moment in the club’s life. It still angers me that people said we cheated our way there. We didn’t. We won it on merit. My personal opinion was that they were trying to do Steve because he upset people.” Wainwright, too, prefers to remember the football rather than the controversy. “Nobody was really upset with how things had gone,” he says. “It wasn’t until afterwards when the FA went piling in that it turned sour. “We all remember what happened but, ultimately, it was a great season. Nip and tuck, up and down, fun to watch. Great days.”