The Lincoln City pre season Nottinghamshire tour rumbled on tonight with a stop off in Collingham to play Central Midlands north side Newark Town. Or the "peaceful warriors" as they are known as. Although its still very early into the season Baz and myself have already seen Newark play this season when they went down 3-0 at Retford United in what was a pretty dull game hence the lack of a blog entry for that match. Tonight again saw the Imps split up the squad with half coming here and the other half travelling over to Skegness to face Skegness United. Newark play at step seven in the pyramid while United aren't even in it and play their football in the Lincolnshire league. So with that in mind i thought that the majority of the first team squad would be here at Newark Town.
Newark charged their standard league price which is £3 so that has to be viewed as a bargain and they were rewarded with a good turn out from the City faithful with over 300 being in attendance. Whenever i have visited Newark they have always done a decent programme and thankfully tonight was no exception, as Mr Richard Lane had come up trumps again.. Priced at £1 it was easily one of the better pre season programmes i have seen in recent years. So a big hat tip to the editor.
Newark's ground may be basic but it's perfectly adequate for the Central Midlands league and is considered to be one of the better ones in that division. There isn't a whole lot of covering but when the weather is like it was tonight that isn't an issue. The large clubhouse is quite impressive (apart from the framed Boston United and Chestefield shirts) and the bar was doing a roaring trade. The first thing that i noticed was this sign advertising a couple of friendlies for Lincoln Ladies. Both of which look quite interesting games.
It was a mixed Lincoln side that took to the field as again we fielded several trialists and nobody was totally sure who was who. The other strange thing was that the Imps took to the field in the 125th anniversary season youth team kit. What made this shirt special was that for a small fee fans could have their names printed on it and of course wanting to help out I had my name plastered on the sodding thing.
Before the match i was a little concerned that we could see a one sided game here tonight. There is a six division gap between the two sides and seeing how it was one of the hottest days of the year (yes i know that that doesn't mean a huge amount given the crappy weather we have been having here) fitness could have been an issue seeing as most of the Newark lads wouldn't have had the day off, whilst Lincoln's players had had the day off. However for much of the first half you would have struggled to work out which side was the full time one. I know it was definitely an evening for watching instead of playing but the Imps players looked like they were going through the motions.
The Imps did take the lead in the 22nd minute when Graham Hutchinson who had now joined the Imps on loan from Birmigham City headed in from close range. Up until this point Newark had really given as good as they had got and gone toe to toe with Lincoln. Would a goal take the wind out of their sails? Not one bit.
The "Peaceful Warriors" were soon on level terms when, after a goal mouth scramble, Ryan Stafford gave the hosts a deserved equaliser. This did seem to wake the Imps up though as we did start to take control after that goal, and were back in front when Adam Smith latched onto a Alan Power through ball and blasted the ball home from 20 yards out.
City spent the halftime break out on the pitch and although we were a little distance from them you could make out that the management team weren't too impressed at their efforts and were telling them so (That the polite way of saying they were getting a bollocking) Again Lincoln made plenty of changes which resulted in much of the second half being pretty much one way traffic. Newark never gave up chasing but they didn't quite repeat their excellent first half showing.
City added their third in the 68th minute when Rob Duffy headed home. City created plenty of chances but a combination of wayward finishing and good goal keeping from the sub Newark goalkeeper who had a decent game (apart from when he gifted the Imps a fourth goal when he knocked the ball into his own net from a corner), kept the score down. The only real goal threat the hosts had in the second half was when a long rage effort forced Turner to parry and collect the ball in at the second attempt.
So all in all another decent run out for Lincoln who looked much better in the second half and hopefully Newark will have made a few quid out of the game.
It appears that they could well be using the funds to fix the flood lights as two of them caught fire and blew out during the second half. Not something you see everyday.
No comments:
Post a Comment