Cheating Boston United manager Steve Evans is still being dogged by the scandal that saw him banned from all football for twenty months and fined £8,000 on a series of charges relating to illegal payments and attempting to pervert the course of an F.A. investigation by bribing a witness. Ex-Boston United chairman Pat Malkinson was banned for twelve months and fined £7,000 for his part in the affair. The case related to Boston's promotion on goal difference at the expense of Dagenhan & Redbridge in the 2001-02 season. In a disgraceful bottling of its duty to protect the game from cheats the F.A. merely fined Boston United £100,000 and deducted them four points from the following season, allowing their ill-gotten promotion to stand.
Immediately the ban on Evans ended the man who had in the meantime taken over as chairman at York Street, Jon Sotnick, sacked the manager in situ and reappointed Evans. This decision has come back to haunt him as Evans has now been charged with fraud. Four others with former and/or present connections to the club have also been charged : ex-club chairman and owner Pat Malkinson, general manager John Blackwell, former book-keeper Ian Lee and former accountant Brian James.
The hearing concerning allegations of sustained years of defrauding the Inland Revenue dating back as far as 1997, when Boston were in the Northern Premier League, will open on Friday at 10.00 a.m. at Bow Street Magistrates Court or the Old Bailey (depending on which press story one prefers) in London.
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22 September 2005 : 
