For whom the bell tolls

No doubt all of you are keen followers of the ballet. Cinderella was on one of the posh channels the other night and your scribe could not help finding a comparison between the age old fairy tale and Lincoln City’s current situation after the defeat at Burton Albion. Cinderella must leave the ball by midnight or her elegant gown will disappear from her shoulders. In City’s case, after this latest defeat it occurred that the end of the season could not come too soon in case the clock strikes twelve and the Imps are exposed in their rags. As it happens the ugly sisters both lost, to Accrington and Wycombe so panic over for another week. In any event City are still eleven points from the drop zone but so far March remains a mixed bag, results wise with City, once again, just to continue the theme a tad longer, playing Fairy Godmother to another relegation haunted team after their largesse against Barnet.
A not best pleased Steve Tilson told the Lincolnshire Echo;
"If we don’t carry on competing then we could find ourselves in a relegation battle,
"This year, the aim is to stay up and hopefully build a side in the summer.
"But at Barnet and against Burton we looked like a relegation side and I had a few words in the dressing room. We need to do better.
"The game was very similar to Barnet as we started slowly,
"If you keep conceding early goals it puts you on the back foot and we did that at Burton. It was disappointing from that point of view.
"For the second goal, Julian Kelly gave a misplaced pass and after they delivered a fantastic ball into the box, Aaron Webster scored with a decent volley.
"Early goals in both halves kill you, then there was a penalty, which shouldn’t have been.
"Ashley has scored a late goal but we did not do enough, and I include him in that”
Barnet and Burton will be far from the minds of Messrs Tilson and Brush now though as they contemplate a fixture that will have been uppermost in their thoughts since they came to Lincoln; Southend. Tilson and his deputy were somewhat mysteriously placed on gardening leave by the Essex club they had bestowed such success upon, partially at the Imps expense you will no doubt painfully recall. Woe betide any player who falls short in this grudge match as the City supremo and his deputy seek to dump the Shrimpers in the deep end and show the club hierarchy what they are missing out on. The pair will hope for a substantial improvement from the squad which produced that five game winning streak. That is starting to look a dim and distant memory. Tilson will presumably be reminding his team that those here permanently will be looking for a new contract sooner or later. Those here on loan are not in that position because they have set the world on fire. He may wish to quote John Donne, “No man is an island, entire of itself, every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main .If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend’s or of thine own were: any mans death diminishes me because I am involved in mankind and therefore never send to ask for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee” - or words to that effect.