Worksop Town 1-2 Lincoln City

Picture of the guys from their best side.

Although Lincoln's pre season campaign technically started at the weekend, tonight was the first time that the full first team squad had a run out. As has been the case in the past the Lincoln squad was split with a handful of the squad travelling to Grantham Town and the bulk of the first team squad making the trip to North Nottinghamshire to face Worksop Town at Sandy Lane. A ground which Lincoln made history on back in 1992 when they took part in the first game to be played there.

I know that its an old football cliche but the results of pre season matches matter little, and are about as important as the SPL will be for the next three years. In the past i have known the Imps beat Premiership teams such as Aston Villa and Derby County (when they were in the prem) and narrowly lost by the odd goal to Liverpool and Arsenal. On the other hand i have seen us lose to the likes of Frickly and Retford. One of our best seasons in recent years was the 2002/03 season which ended in defeat in the playoff final at the hands of Bournmouth. But the first pre season match of that season was a dreadful 1-0 defeat at neighbours Lincoln United, in which City barely but two passes together. Had you told any of the 2000 fans there on that Friday night that City would go on to get to the playoff final i am sure they would have questioned your mental being.
For the big sides pre season is about jetting all over the world, making a stack load of cash, while giving local sides in the USA, China, and South Africa etc, a bit of a kicking. For sides at our level its all about having a look at potential new signings, helping new players get use to the sides system, and putting a few quid into the coffers of clubs even lower than City in the football pyramid. And yes there are clubs lower than us. Normally in these kind of games you get a decent match for about 60 minutes then both sides make substitutes galore and the game loses all rhythm and quality. The admission price normally reflects this by being a few quid cheaper. Alas not tonight as Worksop charged their full league price of £10. Despite this a good number of Lincoln fans made the trip over here and a crowd of 535 is far in excess of what Worksop normally attract. In their defence they do have to pay ground rent (a long story) and I believe that Lincoln did get a slice of the gate money. So maybe it wasn't all bad. It was still the most expensive away entrance fee i have paid to watch City in pre season though. I believe that Boston United charged £10 last pre season against City but due to Boston being a god forsaken shithole we gave the place a wide berth.

Tonight saw Felice make his debut as it was his first game of the season. Unfortunately his has sustained an injury over the summer and has his arm in a sling this means that the poor lamb is unable to drive for a few weeks. Luckly Baz stepped up and we all piled into the Bazmobile and set off for Worksop at about 6.35pm arriving in Worksop at just gone 7pm. After parting with our cash at the turnstiles i declined the chance to buy a golden goal and a 50/50 ticket and picked up a programme for 50p. Similar to Hucknall's effort, this consisted of a singled folded sheet of paper with the club badge on the front, a decent enough write up on one side inside, and a WTFC fixture list on the other side. The back page contained the squad line ups which as always in pre season was hopelessly wrong. Ok it wasn't much, but a programme is a programme and much better than no programme. I must point out that you also got a free Worksop Town Unibond league car sticker enclosed with the programme. But i must have mislaid mine in one of the bins dotted around the ground.

After gaining entrance i made my way to the rather posh looking clubhouse which is quite smart but seems smaller once you are in it compared to the outside.

Thanks to the power of Twitter (@Ferretimp ) I had arranged to meet up with an old friend of mine who i haven't seen in over 12 years. Back then when i was a tad slimmer, younger, and dafter i was an apprentice at a local engineering company. For much of this it entailed 4 days on the factory floor and a day of classroom studies and practical work at North Notts collage in Worksop where we were in a class with other students from other local firms. Over the two years friendships were formed as we sat through endless pointless lessons about stuff i haven't used to this very day. Most of the day was spent arsing about telling stupid jokes and me boring everybody with useless facts.The guy i met up with tonight; Richard, was always up for a laugh and we spent many a happy lunch hour drinking in the Newcastle Arms, eating chips, playing pool, and normally being late back for the afternoon lessons. Ah great days. In those days there was no Facebook or Twitter so we fell out of touch but we finally met up tonight and put the world to rights, discussing the state of engineering, our lives in the past 12 years, and mourning the loss of the afore mentioned Newcastle Arms along with other Worksop pubs such as the Carlton Tavern and the Kings Head.

As always with pre season games the Imps played a mixture of trialists and first teamers and with no teamsheet or names on the back of shirts it took a while to work out who was who. As you would expect against a side a couple of divisions lower than themselves Lincoln had more of the ball and at times knocked it around well. Although they didn't create to many chances Lincoln did take the lead from a fine header from Sam Smith from close range. We watched the game from the open terrace along the touchline which gave a pretty decent view of things.
One of the things we got a decent view of was a couple of Worksop Town stewards who have had "Worksop Town" shaved into the backs of their hair. Quite novel i am sure you will agree and not something that ever occured to me to do when i was working as a steward at LCFC back in the day.

Containing the excitement was just too much at times.

In the second half City rang the changes and gave more players the chance to impress the gaffer. One of which doubled the Imps lead when he latched onto a through ball the Worksop defence tried to play the offside trap, failed, and left him with the easy task of lashing the ball home. Later on his identity was revealed as Phil Bannister who has been playing his football in the USA for the last couple of seasons. At the other end Worksop's first chance went to Bruno Holden, who impressed at Stamford last season but Lincoln sub keeper Jake Turner was up to the task. The Tigers did get one back when former Imp Leon Mettam's glancing header from close range gave the hosts something to cheer about.

So all in all it was what you would expect for a first pre season game. Some players impressed, some didn't, but on the whole it was a decent game played in a good spirit, watched in good company. Not totally sure it was worth £10 though.