Alas this very much in the Sheffield united class of result. Had Leeds really wanted it this could have been as bad as that night in Sheffield back in 2000.
I always like to go to these large grounds and see how the other half of the footballing world live. I love to see all the stalls selling tat, whoops sorry unofficial scarves, badges, and T-shirts; something you don't see at league two clubs. If there were these kind of stalls outside the grounds i go to regularly, i dread to think how much i cash i would waste on badges. To my delight there was also plenty of food vans outside. I went for the Half pounder cheeseburger at £4 and very nice it was to.
Another novelty was the electronic turnstiles. Your ticket has a barcode on it and you just put it into a slot on the wall and a green light comes on and the turnstile lets you in. I am not totally sure what the point of these is, as each turnstile had a steward by it so the same number of staff are still being used and it didn't take any quicker/longer to enter the ground. I wonder if we will use this system when we get to the Championship?
My reaction to going two down in seven minutes
We got into our seats quite early due to the large Lincoln following. I must admit that i liked Elland road; its a proper football ground that has bags of character. Its a hell of a lot better than some of the new era of Lego brick stadiums (Derby, Middlesbrough, Lecicester, Reading, Hull etc etc) that are cropping up all over the place. I don't know how often it is opened but i would imagine that the view from the top tier on the stand to our right must be fantastic.
The programme too was a worthy effort. Ken Bates page was a decent read, though it would appear he isn't a big mate of Derby County's manager Nigel Clough(Derby won 3-1 at Leeds on the opening day of the season)
Looking at that defeat for Leeds was the worst thing that could have happened from the Imps point of view. As it looked like the Leeds manager had given his troops a good rollicking.
As soon as the game kicked off Lincoln were on the back foot. On two minutes Scott Kerr gave the ball away Leeds ran at the Imps defence, got it out wide, crossed it in and scored. On 7 minutes it was two nil with our defence again all over the place. It was pretty much one way traffic and the only surprise was that it took Leeds until the 33rd minute to get the third (Again more crap defending by Lincoln) Leeds looked very good with one touch passing and good passes down the wings. Good as Leeds were though Lincoln made it easy for them.
To give Lincoln credit we knuckled down in the second half and at last started to show a bit of fight. We even pushed forward from time to time and had one or two half chances. When Delroy came on we looked better as he got behind the Leeds back line on a couple of occasions. Leeds 4th came from the penalty spot after Paul Green made the foul. Joe Anyon made a few good saves to keep the score down and that was that.
Overall we were well beaten on the night and there's plenty of work for Chris Sutton to do. The left back position is a major problem but hopefully Jamie Clapham will fully fit soon to help the defence which apears to have improved very little over the summer. An experienced centre half would also be a huge help.
Admission £12 At those prices you would have thought more home fans would have been there.
Programme £2 6/10
Food Burger for a stall outside the ground, £4 8/10
Imps performance 2/10
Ground 9/10
Man of the match Delroy Facey
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