I wasn't looking forward to the game. Lincoln never start the season well. I have never known us win the opening two matches of a season and even when we have won in week one we normally throw it away in weeks two and three. Add in the facts that Rotherham are our bogey team, they lost in last year's playoff final and they play in a crappy athletics stadium in the worst part of Sheffield; a city in which even the "nice" parts are rough and you have all the ingredients for a crap day out. Although it was more enjoyable than i expected it to be.
We took the train to Sheffield. It was fairly full with Sheffield Wednesday fans off to their match in league one, chavs and potential Jeremy Kyle** show participants on their way to the Meadowhall shopping centre, which, apart from the food courts, is overrated in my view. The F1 shop is worth checking out, but i am not going to pay £50 for a Loutus F1 polo shirt.
The Stadium is in the Attercliffe area of the city and to be fair has seen better days. For an idea of what you can expect from the area just type in "Berlin 1945" in images in Google and you will get a rough idea of what to expect. There were plenty of boarded up shops and pubs but there was one or two open like the one pictured below.
With over an hour and half to kick off we dived into a local pub to meet a friend of Baz's for a swift couple of pints. As with Grimsby the week before it was a real home fans pub but it was decent enough. We got two pints of Carling cold for £5 which is all to rare a sight these days. It was a decent pint aswell. Sky sports news was on and it was great to see England were smashing Pakistan all over the pitch in the 2nd test match. Its always nice to see England put our former colonies firmly in their place in sport but the real test for England is Australia away in the winter ashes series. The mistakes we have made in this test series will not go unpunished down under.
We said our goodbyes and left the pub at about 2.10. Its only a five minute walk to the ground. We walked past another couple of pubs on our way to the ground which all seemed quite busy.
Rotherham United had a disagreement with their former landlord and were booted out of their home ground two seasons ago. Since then they have played at the Don Valley athletics stadium in Sheffield. The Don Valley was built in the early 90's for the world student games. It has also hosted Rugby league and concerts.
I am sure that for Athletics the venue is grea,t but for football it is dreadful. The view is crap and the covering for away fans is quite limited. The Imps were the first side to visit the Don Valley for a league match back in the 2008/09 season; over 1200 away fans turned up and the organisation from Rotherham was the worst i have ever seen at a football match. The stewards didn't know their arse from their elbow, they ran out of change at the turnstiles and programmes inside and fans were still queuing to get in 20 minutes into the game due to them only having a couple of turnstiles open. Because of this (and other issues due to the local police force) many Imps fans have said they would never return to the Don Valley for a league match. For this visit over 500 travelled which is about half the number that would have gone had it been back at Rotherhams old home ground.
There seemed to be a decent amount of Imps fans in the stadium and it seemed alot more organised than the last time i was here two seasons ago. We sat in the bottom tier as the weather looked decent enough. Rotherham seem to have a sponsorship deal with some local music shop so they were banging out plenty of tunes; some decent, some not so. After a while it just got boring and the compere was a bit of an arse. We were treated to a couple of cheerleading troupes that looked like they would rather be anywhere then the DVS cheering on the "Mighty millers". One of the tunes that was played was the new one from Alexandra Burke. I am not normally a fan of X-Factor crap, but she is pure filth! this video is my favourite!
so to the match; the opening exchanges were fairly even. City looking to get the ball down and play down the flanks while Rotherham were content to bang the ball long and hope it found Adam Le Fonndre and then hope for the best (a tactic that worked very well last season it has to be said) Then after 7 minutes we conceded our first goal of the 2010-11 season. I thought we did well to hold on that long.
The ball was hit long down City's left and City left back Joe Anderson Cooly shielded it from the Rotherham attacker. However in trying to clear it he made a total pigs-ear of it and gave it back to the Rotherham player who crossed it in for a teammate to get in an effort on goal. Adam Watts tried to hack it way but only managed to send it in to the path of Le Fondre who doesn't often miss from 10 yards out. The result was the ball was smashed into the roof of the net and we were 1-0 down. City had two decent chances to clear the fucking thing yet the ball ends up in the back of our net just like last season, and the one before that.....
To be fair to Lincoln they dusted themselves down and gave the home side as good as we got for the rest of the half, we kept trying to play the ball on the deck without creating to many chances. City were playing 4-1-4-1 Although this can be an attacking system in relies on somebody getting forward quickly to support the lone front man; Drewe Broughton in this case. Half way through Baz and Fleech went for a pie. I didn't have one but they both gave decent reports on the fare on offer. We got to the halftime break 1-0 down and slightly unlucky to be trailing.
We weren't behind for long in the second half. Mustapha Carayol latched onto a long ball down City's left, beat a couple of Rotherham players, and blasted into the bottom left hand corner of the net. The ball took a slight deflection but the goal was credited to the Imps man. City then dominated the rest of the second half with Rotherham chasing shadows for most of the match. Carayol at one point beat 6 home players in a run that started in his own half only to blast the ball over. Had it gone in it would have been the best City goal since Gareth Ainsworth's effort against Hereford away in the 1995/96 season. All of a sudden i was feeling confident that we would get something out of the match. I should have learned by now really. After all this time following Lincoln i really should have known that they will let me down.
And so it was in the 88th minute.
Again Rotherham attacked our left back, the ball was floated into the back post and with two players free the ball was headed home by the homeside's centre back. The chavs in the home end went delirious and i had that horrible feeling you get when you concede a late goal. City went 4-4-2 for the last 5 minutes but by that time it was all too late. Our dreams of an unbeaten start to the season were up in smoke.
We got a lift back after the game but to get to the car we had to walk half way round the ground and not the way we came in. This was only a ten minute walk but it seems like a lifetime when you throw away a game so late in the match.
In the game we had lost centre back Adam Watts to an injury (again) and with only assistant manager Ian Pearce as back up it looks like Chris Sutton is going to have to get a centre back in ASAP. We could have got one in during pre season but that would be the simple thing and thats just not the Lincoln way, is it boys and girls?
Our next match? Away at Championship Leeds United in the Carling Cup Tuesday night. Great.
On reflection we didn't deserve to lose this match. Going foward we looked decent on the flanks through Jarret and Carayol, but we need to get support up to the target man much quicker. Both goals we let in were poor ones and this needs addressing. It was the same back four we had last year and we all know how that went. We dont yet know how long Watts is out for but we really do need more defenders in. All this begs the question as to why we let Danny Hone go out on loan to Darlington till christmas?
Another representive picture of the local area!
Admisson £18
Programme £2.50 5/10
Ground 4/10
Food The pies seemed to get a big thumbs up
Imps performance 6/10
Man of the match Mustapha Carayol.
** For those who dont know, The Jeremy Kyle show is a chat show that feaures the pondlife of Society and the show is on its way to the USA! Hope you enjoy it America!
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