Lincoln City 3-1 Hereford United

Upon studying the fixed odds coupon on Friday night i noticed that Sunnybank fc of the SJFA North superleague were a staggering 9-1 to win away at Ayr United in the Scottish cup. Only one man could confirm if this was a decent bet to go on and so a text was sent off to deepest darkest Leicestershire to get the inside goss on Sunnybank. I received red hot information back that Sunnybank are one of the top Junior sides in Scotland and could well spring an upset. Taking the shady one's word for it, i placed a whole one pound bet, confident in success and my thoughts turned on how to spend my winnings.

Full time result. Ayr United 5 Sunnybank 0

I really should have know better but there you go. His tip of the week this week is for the mighty Rangers to win at Dundee United. Should this one go tits up then the only action to take will be for me to put Kate Nash tracks on repeat in every pub we go in when we have the Jolly boys piss up ;-). By that time one of us could well be paying out on our Steelers v Giants bet. (Who gets the furthest)

Apart from that i can honestly say that Saturday was a good day. The Imps had been on a two game winning run and were about to face second bottom Hereford United who themselves were seven games unbeaten. The Imps have been making steady progress under Steve Tilson and look a totally different side to that under Chris Sutton. Crowds are up and everybody seems alot more positive. The chip shop at the corner of the ground has been shut for the last few home games so we have had to find a new pre match chip shop, which we have and very nice it is to.

We have been a few times now and it has been spot on every time. I can recommend the Kebab meat and chips with the only fault being that the girl serving them put a tad too much mint sauce it but it was still first class and the chili sauce is very hot. All this for £4.10. The battered sausage chips and curry is also a big hit (and for less than three quid).

Hereford had the first attack in the first few moments but from that point on it was all City as Lincoln looked to use the flanks and stretch the Hereford defence, under the watchful gaze of Mr Barlow senior who was making his first appearance of the season. City had already wasted several chances before on loan Celtic striker Ben Hutchinson headed home a cross form Mustapha Carayol. City didn't let up and then in the 35th minute the moment i have waited all season for finally arrived.
Felice and myself have had a bet on which player scores more goals for Lincoln this season. I have gone for international striking sensation Delroy Facey while Felice is championing Drew Broughton. The loser has to pay for the others ticket for the Imps last away match of the season at Oxford United. If its a draw..Baz pays for both of us. Up till now both of us have been locked on...none, which could explain why the Imps are nearer the bottom of the league than the top.

Sir Delroy in his Grenadian National team kit.

The cross was floated in by Jarret and quick as a flash Delroy got across his man to plant a pin point bullet diving header into the top corner of the Hereford United net to give Lincoln (and Baz) some breathing space. Sincil Bank erupted and by far the largest cheer came from Baz. As for the time being he doesn't have to find a way of telling his good lady that he needs the best part of £100 quid for the last away game of the season. The downside of this however is that we now lose Delroy for a couple of games as he is on international duty. But after scored a couple the last time he was away and now opening his Lincoln account you have got to say the boy is on fire at the moment. Over to you Drew old boy.
HT 2-0

After hardly getting out of their own half for much of the game, Hereford were back in the game on 56min when a long range shot was only punched out by Anyon and Hereford tucked away the rebound. They werent in the game for long as a couple of minutes later Carayol made it 3-1 with a great solo goal. Lincoln continued to create (and miss) chances and saw the game out easy enough.

With about 10 minutes to go i saw a sight that i never thought i would see and i bet few have seen or can imagine seeing. Baz turned down A FREE chicken balti pie from one of the caterers!
So there you go. The Imps score three goals, Delroy scores and Baz turns down a pie! Not even a far eastern betting syndicate could have dreamt that little lot up could they?
This was by far Lincolns best performance of the season and a repeat of this performance next week,again against Hereford will see us into the third round of the FA Cup.

Sheffield FC 2-2 Quorn FC

Today i managed to get a ground ticked off the list that has been on our radar for a couple of seasons now. The oldest football club in the world. Ladies and Gentlemen i give you Sheffield FC formed way back in 1857 members of the EVO Stick division one south and one of only two clubs to awarded the FIFA order of merit in 2004. The other being CF Real Madrid.

Sheffield or as they are nicknamed "club" play in Dronfield which is a short drive out of Sheffield. Dronfield is your stereotypical peak district kind of town with a very Yorkshire feel to it(even if it is just inside the Derbyshire border). There aren't many places i like in Yorkshire/Derbyshire but i can cope with places like this.



It was only an hour or so drive from Retford so there was plenty of time for a pint at the Coach and horses pub which is next to the ground. I have been trying a few real ales over the past few weeks as oppose to crappy 4-5% strength lagers so we went for a couple of Pints of "White Swan" which after the first mouthful went down very well(even though it looks like cat piss). The pub is a real country pub and the kind of place where you could have a real session in. Alas we had a match to go to. As it stands this place is my pub of the season so far.

It was only £6 to get in today which is the cheapest i have paid to watch a game in this division this year. The programme was £1.50 and was a decent enough effort with a few nice articles and not just the normal crappy adverts. The chap selling them was a decent fellow and we had a chat about Lincoln and the Imps (We had our Imps jackets on)

The first thing you notice as you walk into the ground is the members board. It reads as a list of who's who in world football. All the FIFA board members are there, England managers past and present many ex pros such as Alan Sherear and Les Ferdinand. Heads of national FA's are there from countries such as the USA, Holland and Hungary. People from all around the world have also joined, with members from places like Argentina, the US and Brazil. Probably the most famous name on the board has to be PELE, The greatest player to have ever played the game. When you see names like this up there it is very tempting to join and say that you to are a part of the oldest club in the world and in a way you are giving back to the club that started the game that we all love today. If you are interested in joining just check out their very good website.

The Stadium is quite smart and more than adequate for this league. The only seating is in the "MacDonald's community stand" behind the goal. To the right hand side of this is a small covered terrace. The rest of the ground is open with hard standing all the way round. The only disappointment was the club shop which was poorly stocked and didn't have any pin badges left. They did have team sheets on sale for 20p though.

Due to a decent FA Cup Run Sheffield have up to 7 games in had on some clubs in the division so its not surprising they are in the bottom third. Visitors Quorn were in midtable.
Quorn were fast out of the blocks and really took the game to the hosts forcing a flurry of saves from the home keeper. "Club" were struggling to defend set plays even though the manager was bellowing at his players to "Wrap them up" from corners. The pitch wasn't the greatest, not that it mattered as the ball spent more time in the air as oppose to on the pitch. After 20 minutes or so we sampled a cheese burger from the food hut. It was decent enough but little more than that. Sheffield doubled their lead before halftime but it didn't tell the whole story.
Quorn really took the game by the scruff of the neck in the second half and it was pretty much one way traffic they scored two and should have had more. The hosts will feel it was a better point than the visitors.

All in all i really enjoyed the day out and it is somewhere any football fan will enjoy going to. When people think of Sheffield and football they think of Sheffield United and Wednesday. Instead of going to either of them i would recommend either Sheffield FC; the worlds oldest club, or Hallam Fc who also play in the city and have the world's oldest football ground in the world. Plus you dont have to listen to Wednesday fans moaning about how the are a big club and shouldn't be in league one (Although it could be league two next year depending what happens on Thursday) Or Blades fans moaning about Carlos Tevez and West Ham.

Admission £6
Programme £1.50 8/10
Ground 7/10
Pub 8/10
Food Burger 6/10 £2.40
Match 7/10

Oh and the best thing about the day that we got to listen to the Imps hang on to a vital three points away at Morecombe! Happy days.

Lincoln City 1-0 Nuneaton Town

FA Cup 1st Round

Apart from last season the FA cup normally does mean "FA" as far as the Imps are concerned. Thankfully the Imps came through against a negative Nuneaton Town side who's sole aim seemed to be to put ten men behind the ball and try to get a reply.
The Imps were reduced to ten men a minute before halftime when Clark Keltie managed to get himself two bookings in the space of two minutes(Prat!). Even this didn't bring the visitors out of their defensive shell. I would have thought that will 20 minutes to go and the small home crowd getting edgy they would have made a go of it seeing how we had ten men, but it was Lincoln who finished much stronger and won the match with an Albert Jarret free kick in the 90th minute.
As the gate money is split in the FA cup it is up to the two clubs to agree ticket prices. Lincoln wanted to make it £5 for season ticket holders and £10 for everybody else. Nuneaton being the money grabbing barstewards that they are wanted full league two prices charged. The FA stepped in and set the prices at £14 in all areas. The result was that almost 2,000 less Lincoln fans attended the match than the previous home league game and thought fuck that and stayed at home or went to the pub. Thus making Nuneatons stance on ticket prices backfire on them. Bolton last season knew they couldn't sell tickets for the Lincoln game at premiership prices (much like we wont shift tickets for this game at league two prices) so the two clubs got together and came up with a sensible ticket offer and the game attracted a decent crowd considering it was just after Christmas and the weather was dreadful.
Lincolns reward is a trip to fellow league two side Hereford United in round two. I am reasonably happy with the draw, they are in the same area as us in the table and even though its away from home i think we are in with a chance of getting to round three. We will play them twice in a week as we play them at home the week before the cup tie.
Its another interesting sporting weekend for me. The Nottingham Panthers can go top of the league if we beat Cardiff and Belfast lose. Inter face Milan in the Milan derby, and on Sunday night i will be watching the mighty Pittsburgh Steelers take on the New England Partiots as we look to go a game clear in the AFC North.


All being well i should be taking in a local non league game at the oldest club in the world; Sheffield FC. The Imps travel to Morecambe and as its the "Shrimps v Imps" match i thought it would be a great time to share this video with you. It is amazing what crap some people put on Youtube, and what crap people like myself will watch.

A crappy few days in Adams sporting world.

It would be fair to say that Sunday through to Tuesday weren't the best few days for my sporting teams (bar the Nottingham Panthers who spanked both Hull and Newcastle this week)
Firstly on Sunday night i took a nights holiday off to watch Pittsburgh Steelers prime time showdown with the New Orleans saints only for the offence to forget to turn up in what was a dreadful 20-10 points defeat. Thus putting us in 2nd place in the AFC North on head to head behind the Ratbirds.
Then on Tuesday not one but two crappy results. Inter going down 3-1 at Spurs was bad enough but not nearly as bad as Lincolns crappy 2-0 defeat to Northampton at Sincil Bank. Since Steve Tilson has been here it has all been pretty positive but this was a reminder, if one was needed, that we still have a hell of a lot of work to do if we are going to stay up. At least the pre match chips were nice.
Just to complete my mood. When you have seen your team thumped at home, its raining and you are about to start a night shift and knowing you took a few hours off to watch a crappy game this song really isn't what you want to hear blasting out when you walk into work at about 10.30pm. Alas i did.