Another home defeat. Cheers!

 

I seem to be at that stage of life where quite a lot of things in my day annoy me. My family and friends will probably advise you they had realised this rather sooner than I have.

The lady I sit next to said something yesterday that certainly reflected how I feel at the football. She said she was fed up of queueing to get out of the stadium being regaled with the delighted cheers of the away fans who, in many cases after months of struggle following their team, came to Lincoln to be gifted three lovely points that their team barely had to work for, there you are, you don’t deserve it, but there’s the points, have them on us.

Once again, a very modest team, one that had sacked their manager, the likeable football genius, according to him, Steve Evans, had left a club teetering on the brink of relegation but, help was at hand in the form of a benevolent Lincoln City who gave them a bit of relief from their troubles and their fans, starved of success, getting some air in their lungs singing some songs they thought they wouldn’t be singing again this season. Happy to help. Safe journey.

I’m starting to get in my stride now. We seem to employ a man whose sole responsibility is to chat to the fourth official. In my seat I have an unrivalled view of this. Here he comes, he’s sent back to the dugout. Undaunted, two minutes later he’s back again. I know other teams do this, not as much admittedly but they do. Usually, but not yesterday he wears an Imps bobble hat. Again, nothing wrong with that but he looks like a fan and I think, I could do that, for free. Chatting to the spare referee, how difficult would that be?

You’ll notice I’m doing anything but talk about the football. One more annoying thing though. Alan Long, announcer, we love you but for goodness sake, welcome the away fans by all means but please don’t encourage them to start cheering, it’s us home fans you’re supposed to be geeing up. Oh, and we know you’ve done your research but the away fans don’t need to know how far they’ve travelled, they’ve done it and we’re not bothered. Rant nearly over.

Yesterday was a new experience for us. I’m not going to jump on the Appleton out bandwagon, it’s getting a bit crowded anyway but often I can see how difficult it is to break down a team whose sole aim is not to be beaten. Time after time teams have come to Lincoln after getting a pasting elsewhere and City have looked pretty good, to be fair. Take Doncaster. Incidentally, they were very loud, well done you. Anyway, they looked as if they wouldn’t score if they’d played till Christmas then they were gifted a penalty and, as we know, you score, we lose. Wycombe was a bit different, although pegged back when we could have won it was a good performance but again, one point when it could have been three and here we are, no points and definitely not a good performance.

Michael Appleton, manager, BBC Radio Lincolnshire, what happened there? What do you want me to say? He really did say that, what do you want me to say? We really don’t help ourselves sometimes.

Bit of rough and tumble? Don’t mind if I do.

 

Strangely enough I probably enjoyed the Wycombe game a bit more than the win against Morecambe. Obviously the three points were better than one but for some reason, probably the fact that I wasn’t expecting anything from the game, I was more relaxed about the outcome, particularly as we’d picked up three points last time out.

For a start, there wasn’t so much of an insistence of playing out from the back. That’s not a criticism of that tactic, about which more later. In the days when City used to play like Wycombe, managers used to say things like, they’re good at what they do. Call it a backhanded compliment, I call it not a compliment at all, it was a signal that it was not the way opposition managers would have their teams play. I didn’t believe a word of it then and I don’t believe a word of it now, Wycombe are up at the right end of the league and that’s the end of it as far as I’m concerned.

What I would say though is you play that way if you haven’t got an awful lot of talent at your disposal, well that’s how it was when we played a more direct game. We play the way we do now because that’s the way our manager wants it and basically if we didn’t the likes of Manchester City and Arsenal wouldn’t loan us their young talent and we need that to balance the books skills wise.

Talking of young players, I sincerely hope young Norton-Cuffy’s parents were watching on Saturday as their lad grabbed the opportunity presented to him with both hands. Once he embarked on that mazy run the roar that greeted Norton-Cuffy’s every touch was tremendous and well deserved.

In fact several players seem to be emerging from the doldrums they had drifted into, not all, but many, and, certainly on Saturday there didn’t seem to be the nerves, either from the crowd or the players when Wycombe equalised. Maybe it was the fact that nothing was expected from the game but I do hope, having emerged from this difficult fixture City don’t throw it all away by losing the third of three home games this coming Tuesday.

Assuming, hoping the Imps emerge victorious from the Doncaster clash then the home hoodoo may be said to be over. I hope I don’t regret saying that.

The madness of crowds.

 

Going home in the car I was almost on my drive by the time Michael Appleton was interviewed on the radio. It was the usual spiel, I thought we were excellent in the first half, true. I silently mused, please praise the crowd because, for me, not for the first time but probably the first time this season the LNER faithful were instrumental in getting the team over the line with all three points. He eventually did acknowledge the fans not before commenting on the assembled faithful’s nerves after, with a certain inevitability Morecambe pulled a goal back. You bet we were anxious Michael, we’ve seen it all before.

That set back, as is depressingly familiar, rocked the team back on its heels. I was thinking, poor as they were, if Morecambe get an equaliser, they’ll win it. The reason for that is, that’s what keeps happening, Step forward, us. The Imps weathered the storm and kept it at 2.1. The crowd sensed resolve was slipping, something was needed from us and gradually, metaphorically speaking people began to rush to plug the gaps pushing, heaving the team over the line. Led and cajoled by the ever excellent 617 the cry rang out, red and white army, red and white army. The silence signs in the library were covered over, come on, more is needed, red and white army, you can clap along but we need a massive effort, so those who wouldn’t normally utter a word did join in, red and white army, red and white army on and on it went until finally, finally the referees whistle went. Even then the chant still rang out, a home win. We’d done it.

Any notion that the steam had gone out of the City support was answered last night. A very healthy, I thought crowd of 7500 turned up to see what was the least attractive  of the triple header to come. I’m not that sure I enjoyed it all that much as the game took on a familiar pattern. City imperious in the first half. Two goals, I thought at the time if we could just get one more maybe the nerves will subside but it didn’t come. A free kick was awarded in a dangerous place. Free kick. Really? Morecambe got one back. It was a great strike admittedly. Here we go again backs against the wall. You’d think we’d cope better, we're very experienced at this sort of thing. Talk about deflated, the body language seemed to say, go on then, win it, that’s what usually happens but somehow, I like to think I know why, the inevitable didn’t come about. City survived, we survived. We pushed and shoved and did the only thing we could and it worked.

Rob Bradley tweeted afterwards , give the crowd Man of the Match and he was right, well he wasn’t, I’d have given it to Conor McGrandles. Can a crowd win a game for a team? No of course not. Did a last nights crowd win the came for City? I’d like to think so.