Will the real Lincoln City step forward?

Well you know how it is, we all assemble at Sincil Bank, pleasantries exchanged. Alan Long gets us all wound up, kind of; it’s all rather ironic in the Echo Stand:

“Echo Stand, good afternoon!!!

“Err……

City swagger on, yes they still swagger and for maybe ten minutes you get the impression its all going to be ok as City spray the ball about then, what happens? Those demons start to extricate themselves from behind the skirting boards, infiltrating the minds of our heroes. Two poor away performances take away the gloss of two decent home ones. What happened to the team that swept Macclesfield aside? The Imps start to labour, weighed down by the fact that they are expected to brush Telford from their shoulders. They’re bottom of the league.

Telford of course fight like demons, they’re fighting for their lives, you forget that in your expectation. They are looking into the abyss. We know, we’ve had a little look ourselves. Our own little devils gnaw away, lose today and the manager will go although not if you listened to Bob Dorrian on Friday football. He did however express his view that failure to secure maximum points from this and the next game would incur chairmanly disapproval and we all know where that can lead so no pressure there then?

Eventually Nolan drives purposefully into the box, finally City show some domination. What are you going to do Telford? There are two options, bring him down or let him do his worst. Crash, down he goes. The referee, who had a decent game, doesn’t have much of a decision to make and he does his duty.

Step forward Newton. He later tells BBC Radio Lincolnshire he meant to put his penalty up in the air. Would you argue with him? Me neither. In the words of David Coleman, one nil, despite the Telford keeper getting good contact on the ball.

The shackles are off and once Tomlinson has doubled City’s lead with a lovely strike City eventually begin to show how much better they were than Telford. They should have had more, many more.

I couldn’t help feeling how fragile City looked. Better opponents would have scampered away from Sincil Bank with the points but they remained in Lincoln. It’s about time we and manager Gary Simpson had some luck and our luck was to play one of the worst sides to come to Lincoln for some considerable time and do the necessary. That’s not to say they were not some good performances. I cited Newton as my man of the match before the announcement was made but Sam-Yorke, Miller, Tomlinson, Nat Brown (for it is he) and Townsends name (once he had got over an attack of the jitters) would not have elicited groans had they been given the award. So one down one to go and let’s not be too critical. Don’t forget Gary, the chairman would be most disappointed if we don’t win the next one too and we don’t want Bob to be disappointed do we?