Boston United Walking Football Club is declared the UK’s best

The Pilgrims set-up received the accolade at the Walking Football Association’s grassroots awards.

“We’re absolutely made up, all of us,” said coach Dave Scotney, praising a real team effort. “It’s for everybody this one - the staff, the players, they all play their part in different ways.

“Because you’re working together teamwork makes dreamwork, as they say. All those bits added together gets us where we get to.

“We’ve been doing it five years now, from having two people join me at York Street on the first night at the first session, it’s just grown since.”

The walking football club has members aged from 39 to 77 - both men and women - competing in a sport many felt they’d never be able to play again.

But the nature of the sport means that age and old injuries are often no-longer the barriers they used to be.

And while the club has already produced four England internationals - Steve Slater, Geoff Ward, Scotney and Dom Sykes, who also plays for Sleaford Academicals - it is the ethos of providing sport for all which caught the awarding panel’s eye.

“I think we impressed them because we run it like a proper community club where anybody can come and play,” said Scotney, a former Boston Town goalscorer who classed himself as a ‘late developer in the game’, grateful to former Poachers boss Bob Don-Duncan for showing faith in him back when he was a Boston Grammar School pupil.

“We’re not just elite footballers, we don’t discourage anybody from taking part, whether that’s ability, race or whatever.

“You have to give everybody their chance. You can really see the improvements in a lot of players, it’s good to see.”

Anybody wishing to know more about walking football can email [email protected].