Getting to Boston games by Public Transport

[leicester pilgrim]

This is a thread aimed predominantly at those Boston fans who are based away from the town, though I'm happy to listen to sensible suggestions from anywhere.

As people who know me will vouch, I've hardly missed a Boston game at home or away for several seasons - generally driving myself from my Leicester base. Unfortunately an ankle injury sustained over the summer has temporarily put me in a position of not being able to drive. That's a horrible thought with the football season around the corner. I will have to miss midweek matches during the opening weeks of the season, but was consoling myself with the fact that I'd still be able to get to Saturday matches via public transport. Or so I thought...

I was contemplating coming over to Boston for the pre-season friendly at Tattershall Road next week, but nearly fell off my seat when I saw the price of the train fare. £32 return is more than three-times what I would spend on petrol if making the same journey by car. How on earth do such fares encourage people to do the right thing environmentally? And I just want a seat for the duration of the journey, I'm not looking to buy the bloody train!

Thought I'd post to see if anyone has any tips around how best to get to Boston games without using a car? I know people like Ken regularly make the journey from far flung backwaters like Leeds, and would be grateful of any suggestions. I know there have been adverts on TV in the past for websites where you can apparently get train tickets cheaper, but I've never really paid any attention to them as I've never needed to.

And if anyone knows a way of accelerating recovery from injury .....

And in the unlikely event of anyone making regular journeys to Boston matches via Leicester .....

Thanks!

[sparks]

     In response to your journey arangements leicester pilgrim wherabouts in the Leicester
     area do you live............... don't no whether or not as a temp arrangement I could probably
     help out ? PM me if you want.

[chris b]

I was contemplating coming over to Boston for the pre-season friendly at Tattershall Road next week, but nearly fell off my seat when I saw the price of the train fare. £32 return is more than three-times what I would spend on petrol if making the same journey by car.

£32 is the Anytime Fare.
Assuming you're just going for the day then an Off Peak Day Return is what you need. That's £18.

[AJHallgarth]

The main tip I can give you is to buy the train tickets in advance (I usually go for 3-4 weeks before the game). OK, sometimes matches are postponed but that's rare enough that you'll still comfortably save money in the long run. Also, if you're going from Leicester to Boston and back then use East Midlands Trains' website - http://www.eastmidlandstrains.co.uk/EMTrains - to buy the tickets. For away games, here - http://www.thetrainline.com/default.asp?T2ID=8402_2009711123258 - is a good place to start.

As mentioned above, you can get an Off-peak Day Return for £18. Also, presuming you're going to be taking the train regularly, look into getting a railcard. I get 1/3 off with mine - it only costs £24 per year.

[Ken Fox]

Good advice from AJH there.

A few other tips...

Try to avoid using the Trainline as the buggers add on a payment charge at the end of the transaction. It's only £1.50 but it's annoying and if you buy the tickets with your credit card from most other train operating company sites you don't get charged it.

If you really want to save a few extra quid then become an expert in how the fares are calculated! Quite often you can get a cheaper fare by breaking your journey at a suitable point. So if I'm heading south from Leeds and my trip is through Sheffield I usually find that getting off peak returns from Leeds to Sheffield and from Sheffield to my destination is cheaper than a straight forward off peak return to the destination. Similarly heading north through York and west through Manchester.

Sometimes you can get good deals on advance single tickets. So if you book a week or more in advance then getting two advance singles often works out cheaper than an advance return. When I'm heading to Boston from Leeds I've taken to going out on a first class single and returning on a second class single and it comes in at about the same price as a normal off peak return - and I get a free cup of coffee and a biscuit in my first class outward journey - well at least in the bit from Leeds to Grantham - it's a bit pot luck if there are any first class compartments on the East Midlands cattle truck from Grantham to Boston!

What's the ankle injury? Quite a few away grounds in the Unibond League are a fair walk from the train station, so you might have a problem doing the last mile! I managed to tweak my Achilles last December and even though it wasn't too bad - I hadn't actually snapped it - it was still three months before I could do any serious running on it.

[leicester pilgrim]

What's the ankle injury? Quite a few away grounds in the Unibond League are a fair walk from the train station, so you might have a problem doing the last mile! I managed to tweak my Achilles last December and even though it wasn't too bad - I hadn't actually snapped it - it was still three months before I could do any serious running on it.

Thanks everyone for some really good advice. Appreciate it all. I've even managed to locate someone who's making a very similar journey to matches and has offered to help me out with a few lifts, which is a bonus I didn't expect.

In terms of the injury I actually took part in the Sea Bank Marathon between Boston and Skegness on 7th June. I felt fine on the day and completed it, but by the next morning the whole of my right lower leg was in pain and I couldn't get my foot on the floor. Initially I was told it looked like a stress fracture (which was then ruled out via X-ray), then they were talking about a blood clot before finally deciding it was nerve damage to the outside of my right leg. (There's a more technical name which I can neither remember nor spell). At the moment its left me without a proper "up and down" hinge movement in my right ankle - hence problems in operating brake and accelerator pedals. I've been told it will recover fully and is just a matter of giving it time.

[Ken Fox]

Time to consider leasing a car with an automatic gearbox for a few months.

It sounds like something that will take a while to heal. The thing that got me when I was looking on the web for ways to speed up the recovery of my tweaked Achilles was that there was loads of contradictory advice! Some said apply heat, some said ice. Some said gentle stretching, other said avoid any stretching. Some said use anti-inflammatory drugs like ibuprofen, others said whatever you do don't take any anti-inflammatory drugs. The things that seemed to work for me were to do a bit of gentle massage of my ankle, apply a hot compress for a minute or two after a shower, raise my leg onto a chair when sitting down - this seemed to stop fluid accumulating and reduce swelling and to supplement my diet with a daily protein drink. The thing that didn't work at all was ibuprofen gel - it just made my ankle sticky! About the only thing I didn't try was acupuncture - and that might actually work but it's not the sort of thing you can do yourself!