Lincoln City 2-1 Maccelsfield Town

I wasn't really looking forward this game. Macclesfield were on a decent run, we hadn't won for what seems like an eternity, we hadn't scored for four and a half games, and we don't have a manager.

However upon entering the ground, things just felt different. The Imps were warming up at the Stacey West end of the stadium and it seemed a lot busier. People were discussing the managers position and prospective manager Steve Tilson was sat in the directors area after his interview for the job in the morning. It is looking like it is his job to lose.
Another couple of Sutton brainwaves had also been reversed. Firstly the Imps management team swapped the dugouts back to the positions they were pre Sutton and more importantly at kick off the Imps kicked towards the South Park end of the stadium first half and not the home end. I have always thought it is better to kick towards your home fans in the second half and it looks like the players agree with me.
The Imps backed by a larger than normal crowd were out of the blocks quickly and getting the ball down the flanks and firing plenty of crosses into the box. However as normal, we were struggling to get anybody on the end of them. Macclesfield have some tall defenders so it's no suprise that we struggled to win much in the air in the box. We were getting plenty of corners though which was a change, but all too many times the delivery was poor. We took the lead when Moses Swaibu poked it home following a goal mouth scramble. The goal drought had ended and the relief was clear for all to see. Macclesfield had the odd half chance but overall the Imps were well worth their half time lead.

At half time the youngsters in the crowd were given goody bags from the Lincoln mascot poacher and his helpers. In the bags were sweets, a fun quiz, some football trading cards, and an old Lincoln programme from last season. Its nice when the club does things like this. It doesnt take alot of time and money and it goes down well with the fans.

Macclesfield are lead by former Lincoln assistant manager Gary Simpson who worked so well along side the late great Keith Alexander during the playoff years here at Sincil bank. They also have several former Imps players in there line up. Former Imps captain Paul Morgan was on the bench while Natt Brown was in the starting line up. Former Imps Loanee Hamza Bencherif equalised for Macc with a header following some very poor defending by Lincoln from a free kick.
Lincoln retook the lead from a great free kick from Jamie Clapham. As he lined it up i said to Baz that this was going to be either booted out of the ground or smacked straight into the wall. Instead it flew straight into the top left hand corner as we looked at it. I must stress that Delroy Facey leant into the wall making a gap for the freekick to be slotted through. It was a great strike though, i can't remember a better one freekick in all my years watching matches at Sincil Bank.

All in all i felt that the atmosphere was much better and there just seemed a buzz about the place. Lets see who the new man is....