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| A cracking programme. I really like the fans view page ;-) |
The first day of the season is always special and one of the most exciting times of the season, and for the Lady Imps it felt like a new dawn. A new home stadium, new kit, and a new manager at the helm. Throw into the pot the first game of the season being an FA Cup tie against old rivals Chelsea, and it had all the ingredients of a fantastic curtain raiser to the season. However the weather thought it would try and throw a spanner in the works. Thankfully though it was thrown back in its face and we got a fantastic event to start the season (well it was if you are a Lincoln fan of course)
I must admit that as i tucked into some pre game beers in various pubs on the high street (another plus to moving stadiums), I wasn't totally confident that the game would go ahead. Several Women's FA cup games had already been called off and as the weather changed from drizzle to rain to sleet to snow and back again, i did have the horrible feeling that ours would go the same way. To make matters worse my Internet had gone down so without access to twitter i had no idea if an inspection was called. So at 1.15pm i braved the snow (as it was at that point) and headed down to the Bank. Upon arrival i joined the small ground of Lady Imps fans huddled in the shelter outside the ground near the ticket office. Thankfully after about ten minutes or so the gates opened as the game got the go ahead. Although it wasn't particularly fun being out in the cold and rain i don't think there was much the club could have done. Had they let the fans in the game and then it had been called off, we could have had an awkward situation on our hands with people wanting refunds and moaning as to why they were let in in the first place etc. So the club really was in a no win situation on that one. On the plus side though it was nice to meet a couple of fans i have only chatted to on twitter/facebook land so it was nice to put names to faces.
After entering the ground and collecting the programme (£2.50 with a free copy of "She kicks" magazine thrown in) you could see that the groundstaff must have worked their socks off to get the game on. The drainage at Sincil Bank is quite good but there were one or two areas where standing water was starting to gather. Never the less, both sides were going through their warm ups and it soon became apparent that this was going to be a real battle and very physically demanding. Summer football eh? You just can't beat it can you. It must have been a bit of a shock to the system to the players who returned from sunny Cyprus this week. And while i am on the subject of that i must take this opportunity to belatedly congratulate England on their 1-0 win over a good Canada side in the final of the Cyprus cup.
Lincoln have a slightly smaller squad than last season and on top of this we had Sophie Walton suspended plus Meaghan Sargeant and Sophie Barker injured, which meant that we were only able to field 3 subs to Chelseas 5. For Lincoln, new signing Karen Bardsley lined up in goal behind a back four containing the tried and tested pairing of Casey Stoney and Sophie Bradley as the two centre backs, with Bonnie Horwood and Martha Harris as the full backs. Across the middle we had Jess Clarke on the right with Emily Roberts on the left. Megan Harris and Remi Allen were once again paired together as the engine room in the Lincoln midfield. Up front we had Carla Cantrell and last year's top scorer Precious Hamilton. Obviously Chelsea are a lot less familiar to me but i was surprised to see Nicki Davis in goal ahead of Carly Telford.
The early exchanges gave us a sign of things to come. As playing passing football on the ground was going to be difficult, it certainly wasn't a day to be passing the ball around your own penalty area. It was also well worth chasing down lost causes as the ball just went dead if it landed in one of the puddles forming on the pitch. After a free kick from Chelsea that would have looked more at home at Twickenham, Lincoln had the first real chance when Precious got on the end of a long goal kick but Davis pulled off a smart save. In conditions like this it is always worth a long range shot as keepers would rather punch than try and grab a slippy ball and it was from such an effort that Lincoln almost took the lead. Cantrell blasted in a 30 yard effort that Davis pushed out to Jess Clarke but she had just strayed offside. Chelsea hadn't really threatened but they did come more into it in just before halftime. A clever through ball looked like it had caught the centre back pairing out but full back Martha Harris got back quickly to snuff out the danger from Eniola Aluko.
That was the last real action of the first half and both teams trudged off to the warmth of the changing rooms. Lincoln were wearing the brand new home shirt which is mostly white however most of the shirts werent really very white at halftime as they were caked in mud. Although strangely enough Karen Bardsley's kit was still a shiny green colour which tells you how hard the Lincoln defence had worked. Smart as the new home strip is i had decided to bag one of the away shirts, which are a rather fetching pink colour. Well it had to be done didn't it?
No changes for either side in the second half but a change in momentum as Lincoln attacked from the off. Carla once again was in the thick of the action as she had a neat effort deflected just wide which gave the Imps a corner. One thing of note in the first half was Sophie Bradley going up for corners and set plays, which is something that we didn't see much of last year; and it was Sophie who got the assist for the goal. The corner was launched to the back post and fell to Bradley who drove it back across the goal when it got a deflection and looped up into the air. Jess Clarke reacted quickest to head the ball past Davis. 1-0 to Lincoln after 57 minutes. I was very happy to see Jess grab the goal as she failed to score last year and had a tough time with injury, But her performance today and with England in Cyprus shows that she is back with a bang this time around.
Shortly after the goal however Lincoln were on the end of another bang, when Remi Allen was unfortunately on the end of a boot to the face courtesy of Chelsea's Danielle Buet. Now i do not think for a moment that she meant it, but i was still very surprised that no card of either colour was shown. Yes the ref has to take the conditions into account, but does a wet pitch affect high kicking? In my humble view it was worse than the Nani incident in the recent Champions League match against Real Madrid. Food for thought as they say. Remi was off the pitch for quite a while in which time Chelsea took the game to Lincoln but the Imps held their shape well. The medical team patched Remi up and back on she went (looking at twitter it looks like she suffered a broken nose).
Chelsea did have a flurry of corners but Karen commanded her area fantastically, punching the ball clear on several occasions, on the one occasion when she misjudged the flight of the ball Bonnie Horwood was there to head clear. She was also called into action when a long range effort bounced just in front of her but she smothered the shot well. At the other end the Lady Imps almost doubled the lead when Cantrell spotted Davies off her line but the keeper just scrambled back to tip the 40 yard chip over the bar. And then shortly after then she had another great effort when she struck the cross bar from 30 yards out with Davis grasping at thin air. The ball fell to Amy Kay who was on as a substitute for Precious Hamilton and she slotted home however she had strayed offside.
Lincoln almost paid for that moments later when Chelsea quickly broke out and took the ball straight up the other end of the field, but Bardsley saved the day with a smart save from Aluko. Lincoln managed to run down the clock and booked their place in the quarter finals.
Today was one of those days that everybody had to roll their sleeves up and dig in, and that's exactly what each and every player did. Martha Harris at full back was outstanding in my view and thoroughly deserved her Player of the match award. Pushing her hard for it in my opinion would have been Bonnie Horwood and Carla Cantrell who was a real handful for the Chelsea defence all afternoon, but in truth nobody had a bad game for Lincoln today.
The pitch and the weather weren't the best, but a good side learns to play the conditions they are faced with. It's the same for both sides and whoever adapts first knuckles down, and accepts that its going to be tough going, normally wins these types of games in my experience. The Imps did look to pass the ball on the deck when and where they could so it would be wrong to think we just hit it long all game. I was really impressed with how we held our shape when Remi was off the field receiving treatment and how hard we worked to close the space down.
Off the field i was quite impressed with the crowd of over 370. If you had looked out the window at anytime in Lincolnshire on Sunday the last thing you would have wanted to do was venture outside to watch a game of football, so to get this number through the turnstile was very encouraging.
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| A queue... At Sincil Bank! Well i never! |
Just to end on. There are still a few seats left on the bus for next weeks trip to Bristol. Email Tom at t.johnstone@ntlworld.com for details. £15 departure time is 12 noon at Birchwood leisure complex.
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