City show they’ve got what it takes.

 

Lincoln City went toe to toe with Hull City and, whilst Hull took the spoils, Lincoln showed they have nothing to fear should the season pan out to reveal the Imps also gain promotion. After the almost usual early scare City regrouped to equalise, good to see Montsma returning to goalscoring form, and if any team was going to win it, Lincoln City would.

Except they didn’t of course and it was the Tigers who will play in the Championship next season and rightly so. For quite some time this season it looked as if it would be the Imps topping the table, unlikely as it seemed until the almost inevitable blip when, after a season of quite blissful cruising along beating all and sundry, City succumbed to injuries and illness as covid took its grip.

A larger squad maybe would have weathered the storm but City are not in a position to fund those kinds of numbers. Instead the Imps battled on with what they’ve got and it was, as we now know, not quite enough. However, it looks like the immediate emergency has passed and for the last few days the teams heroics had us believing unlikely though it seems, that City could yet go up automatically if they could get back into their stride. Saturday punctured that balloon.

Yet I come back to my original view, City really did look like they could take the match. Instead, a penalty and I saw no one who thought it wasn’t one and even then the Imps battled to the end and almost pulled off another equaliser.

I’ve said many times, success in the playoffs, not that we’ve any experience of that, depends on a side being in good form going into the lottery. On this evidence City certainly have it within their capabilities to succeed. If they can keep up this latest good spell then it may be the Imps cavorting around the Wembley pitch, as Hull did on ours.

Talking of Hull cavorting around our pitch, I certainly didn’t want to see that so I turned ifollow off at the final whistle so I didn’t have to. I had been watching the live game on Sky Sports prior to Matchday Live so my picture reverted to that channel. What was on? You guessed it, Hull City cavorting around our pitch in celebration. Not my day really.