Twelve months ago, Scott Boden was on furlough and making plans for a life outside football.
Now he’s part of the fairytale that has catapulted Boreham Wood into the fifth round of the FA Cup and a National League promotion battle that could take them into the EFL.
At the age of 32, Boden has been around the block a few times during a career that started with Sheffield United - the club he supported as a boy - and has taken him to Iceland, Inverness and a few other places in between.
But when Chesterfield rewarded the striker by furloughing him along with three of his team-mates, his disillusionment was so profound that he looked for another job.
Boden was about to start a career as a trainee surveyor when ‘Wood' manager Luke Garrard persuaded him to pack his theodolite away and take his shooting boots to Meadow Park.
“I’m as happy as Larry again,” said Boden, who leaves his home in South Yorkshire at 6.15am most days to make the 260-mile round trip for training.
“But this time last year, I was in a bad place. I felt angry and betrayed.
“I’ve been a professional footballer since I was 18 and you learn that disappointment is part of the game.
“But what Chesterfield did cut me to the bone.
“It wasn’t just the frustration that came with being placed on furlough. Loads of people went through the same thing.
“What hurt was that the club told us that they couldn’t afford to pay our wages - and yet continued to sign new players.
“It felt like they had used the pandemic to get players who were no longer in the manager’s plans off the wage bill.
“For the first time in my life, I felt like packing it in and doing something else.
“I’d still play part-time. I had a club and a job as a surveyor lined up and was good to go.
“Then Luke asked me to go to Boreham Wood - and, 12 months on, I can honestly say that I am playing with the best group of lads I’ve ever been involved with.
“There’s no bitterness about what happened at Chesterfield now; well, maybe a little bit.”
Boden shares a car to training with Will Evans, another former Chesterfield player.
He has continued his studies and will be a qualified surveyor by the time he picks out a nail to hang his boots on.
One of his fellow students is an Everton fan who will be at Goodison on Thursday night to see if Boreham Wood can pull off one of the biggest shocks in FA Cup history.
They have already knocked out League One AFC Wimbledon and Championship promotion chasers Bournemouth.
Boden said: “I think we’ve got the oldest squad in the National League.
“A lot of clubs wouldn’t have touched us, but the gaffer has used our experience to build a proper team. There are no egos.
“We look like the kind of team we are: three big centre-halves who stick their head on everything, and lads in midfield who don’t stop grafting.
“We pride ourselves on making sure we’re not a nice team to play against.
“The important thing when we go to Goodison is that we give a good account of ourselves.”
The FA Cup odyssey has given a much-needed boost to Boreham Wood’s bank balance.
But it’s the glory that counts for Garrad’s players.
Boden added: “The week after we won at Bournemouth, we got knocked out of the FA Trophy by Wrexham.
“That was a bigger game to us than any we will play in the FA Cup because we saw the Trophy as a real chance to go to Wembley and win some silverware.
“We’re also still in with a chance of promotion - and that has to be the main aim.
“But games against Everton at Goodison Park don’t come around often.
“We’ll give it our best shot and see where it takes us - and we’ll then have a few beers afterwards like we always do.”
