City are victims of their own success.

I just caught a glimpse of a slightly smug Gary Simpson leaving the field last night and thought, did we really play like this once? No wonder gates were nothing to write home about during his tenure. Having said that, and we’ve had it said about City plenty of times, you have to impose your game on these strong arm teams and the Imps just didn’t do it last night against what is becoming a bit of a nemesis team, Barrow.

Barrow weren’t all bad, certainly not as bad as some of the refereeing decisions which left City fans wondering why we were still playing against eleven men at the end. Matt Rhead looked more than miffed at coming off but he must have been the only one who didn’t understand why he was substituted with the man in the middle giving the impression that nothing would give him more pleasure than sending off a Lincoln player and that player would have been Rhead.

Denied that option Barrow were awarded a penalty at the end for as innocuous challenge as you’ll ever see when Woodyard, who basically took the ball off the attacking Barrow player but was judged to have fouled. Barrow duly added to their score but it would be disingenuous of me to deny Barrow their victory, I think two-nil though would have been a more accurate reflection of the game.

As Imps fans continue to clamour for tickets for the forthcoming FA Cup game against Brighton & Hove Albion I can’t help but think that bowing out of this competition at this next stage would not be such a bad thing for a small club, relatively speaking, amongst the big boys but City have shown before though that they can bounce back with a vengeance and I wouldn’t put anything beyond them.

It was a tired City that finished last Fridays match against Dover and an even more fatigued one last night though and the Imps have plenty of glory to chase in the Trophy not to mention the greatest prize of all.