Lincoln City 3-0 Braintree Town

In the few weeks there has been a sense, just a sense mind you, that Lincoln City may, just may, have turned the corner. There has been no outpouring of joy and shouting from the roof tops that they are about to romp up the league but there is a feeling amongst City fans that after a recent six game unbeaten run the team/squad may have started to gel.

The unbeaten run we are currently on does contain two games against FC Halifax Town who are a league below City which are matches you would expect us not to lose. On the other side of the coin it also includes a 1-1 draw with a midtable League one side (Walsall) and a fantastic 4-2 away win at Wrexham who at the time sat in second place in the division and were unbeaten at home.  The other two games in this run contained a very eventful 3-3 home draw with Stockport County and a 0-0 draw at Mansfield Town. A game that was so dull and uneventful that even I couldn’t find anything interesting to write about it and thus didn’t do a blog post, which is unusual as it is very rare that I don’t write up the away matches. 

For all the slightly positive signs however the huge elephant in the room is that the club does sit a little too close to the relegation zone for comfort (and how many times have we said that over the past 5 seasons?). Ok I know it’s only November and the League is tighter than Lee Houseman’s wallet when it’s his turn at the bar, but all Imps fans would still like to see City a little higher up the League. Well ideally not even in this League but alas I fear we will be here for quite a while to come. So long as we don’t go down that is. As people often say football is a results based business and tonight was a night when we had to get a winning result otherwise all the good work of the past six matches would have gone down the toilet.  Before kickoff, Braintree sat just below City and were just a point worse off that the Imps. Last season’s match between the two sides at Sincil Bank was one of the better ones of the season ending 3-3. The away game at their place was one of the worst Lincoln performances of the season, and bearing in mind that last season saw lots of poo poo performances from City you can get an idea just how bad it really was. We lost 1-0 and were pretty bloody awful throughout. We did have a stonking good kebab afterwards though, and got a free T-shirt as part of the Blue Square hop treble.

Braintree v Lincoln last season.

As it was an evening match we again went in search of a kebab and tried out an eating establishment on the high street that we haven’t been to before, the afc kebab shop. The name alone would have brought a tear to Felice’s eye. The man in question wasn’t with us tonight as he was away in the big smoke doing a spot of shopping. The kebab was nothing short of fantastic coming in at less than £5. We each went for the basic; Baz with the chicken and myself with the lamb donner. But we were both very impressed and we will certainly be back before the Imps next evening match.

Dinner is served

As we made our way to the Bank it was obvious that tonight was going to be another poor attendance. In the end only 1450 fans (with 30 from Braintree) attended, you could argue that there were mitigating circumstances for this; cold weather, Champions League live on TV, a run of home games etc but it was still a poor turnout in my view and just another reminder how hard it’s going to be to get the fans back through the turnstiles. We have been on a good run of late but it will take a lot more to rebalance five years of rapid decline.

I had half expected City to struggle tonight after the good performance at the weekend but they took the game to the visitors and had the lead within the first five minutes. Jake Sheridan took a shot from outside the box which struck a defender and looped over the keeper into the back of the net. Braintree had set up in a defensive formation, so grabbing an early goal against them changed the outlook of the match. It s rather doubtful that he would have scored if the ball hadn’t taken a deflection and in the papers the next day the goal was given as an own goal. However the dubious goals panel has now awarded the goal to the City midfielder who many fans were surprised that he was resigned this season. His game has improved greatly this year and just goes to show that fans don’t always know best when it comes to signings.

This goal did seem to rattle the visitors who never really got going at all in the first half. Their best effort came from Holdman whose low effort drew a top class save from Paul Farman diving down low to his left and sending the ball out for a corner. At the other end City made plenty of running with Adam Smith a constant problem for the Iron’s defence. Smith does seem to have a great ability to go past people but does seem to try and beat one man too many at times and needs to work on his final ball. Once he does this then we will have a really decent player on our hands.  Although Lincoln had been the better side for the first half we only had a one goal lead to show for our efforts and this, as we all know, can be worrying.

City wrapped up the points in within 5 minutes of the restart.  Adam Smith again went on a decent run and won the Imps a corner. Although Braintree defended the first attack they only cleared the ball as far as Adam Smith. His shot was a tad wayward and was only stopped from going for a throw by Jamie Taylor whose pin point cross picked out Adam Boyce who had stayed up from the corner.  Boyce then got ahead of the last defender and powered a header past the Braintree keeper (Naisbitt) to double the Imps advantage. 47 minutes gone and the Imps lead 2-0.

Two minutes later the points were all but safe. Jamie Taylor pounced upon some poor communication between the Braintree keeper and his central defender to nip in and roll the ball into an empty net. 3-0 and pretty much game over.

The rest of the game was a rather tame affair. Braintree did steady themselves, but never really threatened to get back in the game. Lincoln look like they are really adjusting to this system now and looked confident on the ball. Further chances were created but City just couldn’t find the fourth goal that would have taken them to a goal difference of zero in the goal difference column. Never mind though. This result took the Imps’ unbeaten run to seven matches, gave us a four point gap to the drop zone and lifted us up to 15^th place in what is a very congested table.

Earlier in this article I mentioned how this was a game that City had to win and win well, and I am delighted to say that this is exactly what they did. City have been playing with a new found confidence and actually look like a team.  The fans that were there were certainly entertained and it was great to see Lincoln fans leaving the ground with a smile on their faces. Although a 3-0 win over Braintree won’t lead to full houses over night, it is at least another small step in the right direction. Let’s hope we can continue along this path.