City not at their best but, what’s this? Three points!

 

The best thing about last nights win was that I didn’t watch it. Instead I went all traditional and listened to BBC Radio Lincolnshire where, in the absence of Thommo, Michael Hortin was commentating with Rob Makepeace telling the jokes. I mean doing the punditry. I found it all rather amusing. I always assume Hortin is Makepeace’s boss but he was doing a fair job of punting for the top job by failing to rise to Michael Hortin’s attempts to bring him into the game and provide the filler a la Thommo. Personally I didn’t really miss the references to when I was at Sheffield United/ Charlton/Boston United and we surely should be grateful we have such quality coverage of the game. I can’t believe it when I hear criticism of our local station and I wonder if some of the critics have heard other local radio coverage?

Talking of superior coverage I don’t believe I’ve mentioned Matchday Live on here before but, like you I’m sure I’m an avid fan of the build up show and I think that we’re so lucky having two such accomplished presenters as Sam Ashoo and Gary Hutchinson giving us such a watchable programme to start our viewing.

Anyway, City return to third spot in what is continuing to be a very acceptable season indeed and the only worry is will we get to see these marvellous young players before they are snatched away to pastures new? There does seem to be some light at the end of the tunnel particularly with news of the various vaccines now starting to become available for testing.

From what I heard there were many good performances last night  and no more so than Lewis Montsma. Will he be the first out the door? Lets hope not, before we’ve all seen him anyway but we are, even more than we were, a selling club.

There must surely be some clubs really hanging on by the skin of their teeth and I hope were not in that category and our best players can be clung to in order to have a little more success either by way of further promotion (I can’t believe I’m hinting at the championship but I’m sure it’s a possibility) or cup success. We’ll soon find out about that.

My one and only visit to Swindon, for football, I’ve been there lots of other times, was a dispiriting experience. There are many really pleasant places in the area, Oxford, Cheltenham and the Cotswolds to name three but Swindon is the exception and, if the signs around the place are to be believed a hostile place for away fans. Maybe it’s because we keep returning from there with the points.

Come to think of it, it’s not all that far from Forest Green Rovers is it? Must be something in the air that suits us Impish types.

 

Lockdown limits the experience but we’ve never had it so good.

 

The FA Cup pitted the Imps against a lower division side but not just any lower division side. Would City demonstrate the gulf between division one and two, or would Mark Cooper get his revenge for all those defeats?

Well we know the answer as the Imps swept aside Forest Green Rovers to take their place in the draw for the next round. Those two goals against were a minor irritation as City looked every bit the dominant force in this first round tie. Rovers tippy tappy approach, as usual against the Imps, failed to produce a win for Coopers supposed defenders of the soul of football and dump them out of the cup at the first time of asking. It was Lincoln who showed, whilst they may be under new management, it was business as usual in this unlikely rivalry but this time City did not resort to biff bang football and they emerged the Style Councillors and FGR the Shakin’ Stevens of the first round.

City were forced to make changes, or would they have done so anyway? As usual Michael Appleton was playing his cards close to his chest but whoever played in this game it all boiled down to one thing. Finishing. It was the Imps who were clinical in front of goal as Rovers wasted their early dominance and found themselves behind as City ran roughshod over a side that looked as if they didn’t know what had hit them. Even Cooper had to admit they had the chances to make their mark but didn’t take them as the Imps showed the ruthlessness in front of goal Rovers would need to emulate if they are to get those stars on the back of their shirts filled in signifying that all that money they spend was justified. Will Cooper get the opportunity to complete the task his chairman had described as easy? You have to say, despite their decent position in league two, time is beginning to run out with his contract expiring at the end of this season and on this evidence FGR look some way off league one standard.

Having said that City, whilst most of us don’t regard the squad as the finished article they very much looked a team on an upward trajectory and a decent draw in the next round could see us looking forward to locking horns with one of the big boys in round three.

In the meantime the novelty of going into the draw for this round of the cup as the highest placed club was something to be savoured for us fans and City certainly negotiated the round justifying their status. We’re probably better suited to the role of underdogs but, just this once it was good to go into the tie as firm favourites and they certainly were good value for that billing.

Hurrah, it’s FGR. Boo. Not for me and not for you.

 

It’s a shame the presenter on last  night’s BT Sport FA Cup programme wasn’t a bit better up on Lincoln City politics or he’d have asked Danny Cowley, on as a pundit, what he thought of the draw that pits Lincoln City against a club we rather hoped we’d left behind, Forest Green Rovers.

I’m sure Cowley would have been as diplomatic as ever but there would, surely have been a wry grin on Danny boys face as the tie was announced.

There’s no guarantee of course that City will be able to maintain their winning run against the muesli munchers, especially now we’re under new management and, as the bigger club now, Michael Appleton may well use the fixture to give some of the understudies some game time and a chance to show what they can do.

It’ll be a different game too as Danny usually reverted to a basic hit and run strategy that our old friend Mark Cooper couldn’t seem to get to grips with. That was either because a leopard doesn’t change its spots or, more likely, he wouldn’t want to demean himself, as guardian of the true spirit of the game, by getting down and dirty with us ruffians from Lincolnshire. He’d probably agree with that other paragon of football virtue, Joey Barton who said recently he’d rather lose than employ the, shock horror, long throw tactic employed by that well known long ball outfit Accrington Stanley.

Either way we won’t be there. We will either have to rant and rave at home unless anyone fancies getting together with megaphones on the top of the south common and hoping the wind’s in the right direction?

 

Crewe away. There’s three easy points for us then. What are you laughing for?

 

No time to stop and have a quick three verses of we are top of the league, the Imps are away at Gresty Road or whatever fancy name they’ve given it, following the win against Ipswich Town at home, which was rather more comprehensive than the Tractor Boys manager or their fans would care to admit.

It doesn’t seem five minutes to an old crock like me since Crewe were lording it in the championship on the back of a tie up with Liverpool that saw them benefit from some profitable loans but they’re back in league one now in a reminder that for small clubs, and I include us in that, the championship, while attainable, is a plate spinning exercise and unless that crockery keeps going round down you go, as Crewe did and the trick then becomes how to stop the slide, in the first instance before you even begin to plot your rise.

Crewe are doing it by way of a long term relationship with their manager which I’m sure we’d all agree with. City will be no different, the last managerial change being out of their hands. Most of us will hope Michael Appleton sees it that way but it won’t be long before were all getting in a panic the next time a juicy job comes up. Appleton wouldn’t be every chairman’s idea of the perfect managerial fit, hopefully. Appleton’s, and the clubs mantra now is catch them young, bring them on and sell them for as much as we can get. It won’t be to all of our liking and I can just imagine the furore if Lewis Montsma or Sean Roughan, say attracts a tempting bid in the future. We’ll all have to be ready for that. We have to be ready for those managerial jitters too and hope that the big apple can see when he’s on to a winner with City.

We’ll probably have to be ready for some changes to the team by the sound of it as injuries start to take their toll but with a young roster hopefully that won’t take the wind out of our sails too much as the season progresses.

City will be hoping for a similar result to last time at Crewe. I can just hear your murmurings of scepticism now. Oh ye of little faith!

Don’t bet the farm on beating the Imps, Tractor Boys.

 

Oh what fun we had bringing Ipswich Town down a peg or two. We like that don’t we? Talk about they don’t like it up ‘em. One irate fan declared he was fed up getting turned over by “tiny” clubs like Doncaster and Lincoln. Town’s manager, the bemused looking Paul Lambert stated it was all the referees fault and he was going to report him. Good luck with that.

Before the game, watching the excellent matchday live show, Lamberts interview with the local press was shown. I got the sort of optimistic feeling I used to get when managers started off their press conferences with “We know what to expect from Lincoln”. They don’t tend to say that anymore. The Ipswich manager didn’t say anything really. “ Lincoln have got off to a good start haven’t they” “Er, yes”. He might as well have said “have they?” No, a win is confidently expected on the basis that, well we’re Ipswich aren’t we?

As the game started maybe Town did have an inkling of what City are about as a couple of Imps players were clattered. Then the game settled down into a depressingly familiar  pattern, if you’re from Suffolk that is, for us Imps despite not having as much possession as Ipswich the passing was crisp, purposeful and above all, mainly forwards. Town by comparison were crab like. Sideways it went, back it went, sideways again. The keeper was hopeless but at least he was getting plenty of kicking practice.

All that was missing was of course a goal. I started to become concerned that all that dominance would come to nothing if City couldn’t fashion a goal then along came the inevitable penalty, inevitably from the guile of Brennan Johnson. I’ve an idea these opportunities might become a bit few and far between as word gets out that City get a lot of penalties from the same source. Anyway, the Imps don’t look a gift horse in the mouth and, almost as inevitably Jorge Grant put it away.

Like you, I suspect I was more than a bit miffed when Forest recalled Tyler Walker but then again they let us have him in the first place. Jorge Grant was of course a Forest product but a lot of the credit for his resurgence surely rests with Michael Appleton and now we have Johnson. I presume the intention is he’ll go back to the City Ground a better player. I don’t mind that and if he were to stay I’d be delighted.

As for Ipswich, maybe they’ll get back up maybe they won’t. Plenty of former big clubs have failed to recover their former status. Coventry and if you want an even more extreme example, Stockport County spring to mind. Everything about Portman Road says big time. Big time forty years ago that is. Yes, Ipswich are a big club in league one. As we found out when we were a big club in the national league you’ve got to come to terms with that before you can make progress and realise reputation is not going to get you anywhere.

Ipswich Town may well show I’m wide of the mark but they’ve got some way to go before they do that on Saturdays showing.

Hair today hair tomorrow.

 

Harry Anderson has not had a haircut all season. I did hear him mention it in an interview but can’t remember the reason. Superstition presumably, all players seem to be susceptible to that. Anyway he’ll soon be displaying the sort of embarrassing, at least I’d be embarrassed if I had enough hair, barnet increasingly seen in the prem.

Harry wasn’t named in the starting eleven last night although his performances seem, to the untutored eye, to merit it. That’s one thing I’ve noticed about Michael Appleton. There are no favourites who continue to play however badly their previous outing went. There are some players who have made themselves indispensable, Alex Palmer, Lewis Montsma, Jorge Grant spring to mind, you’d expect that and you have to have some consistency. Most successful teams don’t chop and change all that much but Appleton has shown players have to perform or they’re out. Similarly if a player has performed well but the manager having studied the opposition believes a change is advantageous he’ll make that change. It keeps the players on their toes if nothing else. Grant of course had the hairdryer treatment sometime last season but I think that has saved him from the sort of downward drift we've seen from some talented players in our team in the past and surely placed him on a course that will see him play in the championship if not above?

Last night we saw another masterclass. Plymouth are one of those sides we haven’t seen much of lately but always strike me as one we’d have to be at our very best to beat. Well we were and we did. I was amused, it doesn’t take much, that one of their fans was putting it about that Argyle were the better side, the referee wore red blah blah and they deserved to win. It’s generally fans of bigger clubs or rather fans that see their club as bigger than us, the MK Dons episode made me laugh too and of course Forest Green Rovers who have some fans, not to mention the manager who see themselves as the guardians of footballs soul. Wonder what happened to them?

Blackpool, Charlton, Oxford, Plymouth, it’s certainly been a baptism of fire for our young team and they have sailed serenely through it all with the air of those without a care in the world which is a precious gift bestowed on the young. Ipswich Town are next.

Let’s hope it’s some time before those earthly cares start to weigh more heavily on  youthful minds. I seem to be drifting into a state of footballing bliss. You can’t blame me though.

 

Never forget your first love.

 

I don’t think I’ve mentioned in the blog before that my other great sporting interest is cycling. In fact, whilst I saw my first Lincoln City game in the late 50’s before becoming a dedicated follower of the red and white I was an avid pedaller.

That’s not to say I was any good at it, at least the competitive version. A combination of lack of money, not to say talent and too much waistline put paid to any thoughts of a competitive career on the road but on summer weekends I could be seen exploring the byways of Lincolnshire on two wheels well before I discovered the delights (?) of Sincil Bank.

This prompted my wife on more than one occasion to enquire if there were any country lanes in the county I hadn’t discovered on my bike? The answer is not many.

The limitations that held back my non existent cycling career also had the same effect when it came to football, particularly the almost total lack of any ability although the miners boots that my Mother procured from somewhere at the start of each football season didn’t help, that’s what I told myself, and her and in fact, once I’d started work and was able to afford my own boots things did improve albeit from a low base.

Eventually I found myself in three football teams at the same time and from there, it was the Graham Taylor era, my interest in the Imps was secure. Whether that was a good or bad thing I leave for you to decide.

Over the years professional cycling has received more coverage and with the advent of the Sky team, with the avowed intention of producing a British winner of the Tour de France, which they duly did, the TV companies, particularly Eurosport, now show a lot of cycling events.

Now I’m retired I can watch the three major races in their entirety but this year, this crazy year the tours are all taking place now. I do hope you’re keeping up.

So, and finally getting to the point, I found myself in the bedroom, at three o’clock on Saturday with Eurosport on the TV, for their coverage of the Giro d’Italia, the transistor radio at the top of the stairs for the game and twitter and we are imps on the computer in my study. Who says we chaps can’t multitask?

One thing that did come across, amidst all the excitement was stand in pundit Mark Hone eulogising on the fact that he hadn’t seem the Imps for some time and was gobsmacked, for want of a better word at how good they were. It took a couple of days before I watched the highlights and confirmed Marks view. We are watching, or rather not watching some pretty amazing stuff. Although the performance only yielded one point I don’t think I’m on my own in wondering if this is the best football and the best team any of us have ever witnessed?

All this is the typical fare of an Imp. The team is playing champagne football and we sit at home with a mug of tea. I really should cough up for a match pass for an away game.

The trouble is the Tour of Spain starts this week.