Lincoln City 0-1 Nottingham Forest

This was the highest profile match and the biggest challenge of Lincoln's pre season campaign. Nottingham Forest were two games from reaching the Premiership last season and have been "there or there abouts" for a number of seasons now. Lincoln had done well against Scunthorpe a week previous but Forest would be a much tougher proposition.

In midweek Lincoln had lost 1-2 at Gainsborough Trinty after fielding a much changed side from the one than took the field against Scunthorpe. Today we fielded what is at the moment our strongest side.
It was a great day for Football. Forest have quite a few fans in the Lincoln area and there were a few on the train we got from Retford in the morning, and with Nottingham not being to far from Lincoln a good away turnout was expected. Pre game we had a swift pint in the Wetherspoons on the highstreet and there was a good mixture of fans milling about. For some reason the game kicked off at 1.00pm because of what i assume was "Police advice" quite how gives this advice i am not sure. There wasn't a hint of trouble and i am sure that in these tough economic times the publicans and takeaway owners on the highstreet would have been thankfull of another couple of hours brisk trading. For fans preseason is all about watching your team in action against sides they normally wouldn't play and going to different grounds and having a few beers. Lincoln already have to wait till the 10th of September for a 3.00pm Saturday kick off and i really think this was another poor decision by Lincolnshire Police along with the Stockport County one.

As it turned out the match didn't kick off at 1.00pm anyway. Forest were delayed in traffic and we got underway at about 20 past one. Heavy traffic around Nottingham due to the test match between England and India at Trent Bridge was the reason that i overheard. This did however give me chance to neck another cool pint of Stella outside the Trust Suite in the sunshine.
Forest weren't the only club though who you could accuse of being unorganised. For some reason only known to themselves Lincoln had decided not to issue any programmes for this match. I can understand step 5, 6, and 7 clubs not issuing in pre season for games there will be about 40 people watching but not a BSP club for a game against a local Championship club who will bring over 1,000 fans with them. The crowd was 2,863 and i am sure a good few would have bought a programme. It didn't need to be a full blown league issue just a few pages listing both squads, upcoming fixtures and that kind of stuff would have been sufficient. For quite a few fans of both sides this would have been the first chance they would have had to see their new signings so a programme would have helped establish who's who so to speak.
I always like to get a memento of every game i go to (yes i can be quite a sad individual at times) So in the absence of a programme i got a ticket from the office instead of paying cash at the turnstiles. During this time the Forest team coach arrived and this gave kids (and some not-so-young kids) The chance to get their pictures taken with Former Lincoln loanee, England manager and new Forest manager Steve McClaren.

As it was a flat rate of £10 entry regardless of what stand you went in. We decided to check out the view from the CO-OP stand which is by far the largest stand at Sincil Bank. It must be at least three years since a sat in here and i must admit the view is fantastic. Another plus about it is that is a bar in the stand next to the refreshment outlets. I didn't partake in supping anymore ale but did take the opportunity to take in some of the highlights of the Cricket which was being shown on the screens in the area. The game was meant to get started at 1.15 but it kicked off at least 5 minutes later. Not that it really mattered.

Kyle Perry took his place alongside Jamie Talyor up front in what was only his second start of the season. Perry had got 45 minutes at Gainsborough on Tuesday but had looked a little rusty. Forest have some big defenders so it was essential that we had a presence upfront and for the most part we did. As you would expect Forest did have much more of the ball but Danny Hone and Josh Gowling at the back did a decent job of keeping Forest at bay. Although he had to endure plenty of chants of "You fat bastard" Andy Reid ran the midfield show for Forest his legs may not be as quick as they were but his vision is still spot on. City did win a few free kicks and corners but all were gobbled up by Lee Camp in the Nottingham Forest goal. Forest did look more likely to score using clever through balls on the ground but good defending and a bit of luck here and there kept the game goalless. Gavin McCallum was giving the Forest full backs something to think about with his pace and it was good to see that there was no showboating from him today.

Lincoln only made one change at halftime with Perry being switched for Sam Smith. The PA system was dreadful so coupled with the lack of a programme made working out who was coming on and off hard work. On about 70 minutes Lincoln started to make a few changes which changed the rhythm of the match. The Imps added three trialists hoping to impress the management team. Forest scored the only goal of the game on 79 minutes when Reid held the ball up to beat the full back and weighed a perfect pass into the path of Polish international Majewski who blasted into the top corner. Lincoln did have a late chance to level the score when the Forest substitute keeper dropped the ball following a corner but McCallum couldn't connect properly.
FT 0-1

Overall Lincoln did pretty well for much of the match. Ok, we weren't carving them open time and time again but then again you don't expect to dominate against a side three divisions above you with International players on the field. Before the game i thought we would be lucky to get within 3 goals of them so we did better than i thought we would.

Next up for the Imps (and us) is the Lincolnshire cup final against Grimsby at Sincil Bank Tuesday night. I suspect that we will see some of the fringe players who didn't play today given a game and i would also like to see Kyle Perry given the full 90 minutes as it would seem that Tilson seems to prefer him as the starting target man.