Lincoln City 1-1 Gainsborough Trinity

Today saw the annual Lincoln City community day. Basically this is the club's open day where fans can meet players, collect autographs, and pose for pictures with the squad. There is also plenty of other stuff for kids, with stalls of various games, rides and face painting etc. All of this is great if you have kids but of very little interest to 33 year old men with no kids (no activities for Guinea pigs i am afraid) It all seemed quite popular though so who i am to knock it? Josh certainly enjoyed himself even if Felice didn't seem to impressed at having to shell out for him to have a go on some of the rides. The high point of my pre match experience was the first visit to our favourite chip shop to tuck into fish and chips and yet again it was excellent and was washed down with a nice can of Red Bull.

The big talking point of the day was the whereabouts of a Mr Barry Oxby. In the days and weeks building up to the game Baz had said that he was heading up to Cannon Park to watch Retford United take on European opposition in the shape of Welsh side Porthmadog. Fair enough you may say. However at about 2.45 pm i was viewing Twitter (The whole world now revolves around Twitter) and saw that the kick off at Retford had been delayed by 15 minutes. Now i know that United had a decent season last year, but i wouldn't have thought that interest in the Badgers had rocketed to such a level that crowd congestion had caused the game to be delayed due to the hoards of fans through the turnstiles. Having a man on the scene meant that we could get the bottom of the mystery. Or so we thought.
I texted Baz asking what the atmosphere was like at Retford and the answer came back

"Dont know, at Clumber"

Hmm now what did he mean? My first reaction was that he was in the watering hole of the the same name in Ordsall, knocking back a few dozen sambuccas and pink gins before the game, so i sent a further text to find out if he was in the pub. He then replied that he was at Clumber park lake and thus wasn't going to attend any football matches today. Shocking behaviour i am sure you will agree.
One can only assume that he was indulging in a spot of birdwatching and on the lookout for the infamous Ruddy duck. For those of you who don't know what one is here is a video showing what they look like, so if you spot one don't be afraid to say hi. And if you don't get bored with the video after about 30 seconds than congratulations you have lasted longer than i did.

Its safe to say that this reason for missing a game could well result in a trip to the Kangaroo court, although seeing as Lee has been like the scarlet pimpernel this season he could well have a bit of a wait to have his case heard. The way that Lee and Baz are hogging the court i wont have to buy a hot drink till at least January at this rate.

If truth be told that was the most entertaining thing about the game, as the match had a real "can't be arsed" feel to it. The game kicked off a few minutes late (which will have had some of the sad ground hoppers in uproar) Lincoln scored in the first half, courtesy of a Rob Duffy penalty, with Trinity pulling level in the second half thanks to a Phil Stamp header. I am a tad behind with the blog so i will spare you the in depth match report. The main talking point of the day was the whereabouts of Josh Gowling. It later aspired that he was at a friend's wedding and was placed on the transfer list on Monday. Trinity had a couple of Lincoln old boys in their side in Shane Clarke and Danny Hone with the latter getting a great reception from the City faithful (and rightly so) The highpoint of the game came at halftime with the draw for the "Name our Stadium" campaign which had raised an impressive £21,000. Congratulations to the 12th man scheme that won the draw. City's financial plight has been well documented, but even in these tough economic times its great to see City supporters digging deep to help the club we all love keep going.
Did i get up to anything else this weekend? Ah yes i went to Clumber Park Sunday :-p

Aye up me duck