Lincoln City 1-1 Mansfield Town

The weekend

I did see two games at the weekend but both were pretty poor (hence no blog posts). I wasn't too surprised that Lincoln went down to BSP big spenders Fleetwood town on Friday night. We went in 1-0 at halftime but our normal defensive gaffs cost us in the second half as Fleetwood ran in three goals that were all pretty similar. Anyon saved the first effort only for an on rushing Fleetwood attacker to be first to the ball with the Lincoln defence AWOL.

Then on Saturday we made the short trip to Cannon park to take in Retford United's match with Maltby Main. This in my view was the worse non Lincoln game i have seen this season. Neither side managed to string more than 3 passes together and the ball spent about 80% of the time in the air. Once again Retford, who can play good football when they want to, were dragged down to their opponents level. In the end the badgers did win thanks to a last minute deflected own goal. They didn't really deserve to win but i will take the three points.

As i have visited both Sincil Bank and Cannon park quite a lot this season i didn't bother with a full winded blog. Anyway you really didn't miss much. Longer blog posts will be back in the very near future.

Lincoln City 1-1 Mansfield Town

The first local derby game of the season, and a game i always look forward to. Mansfield is my most visited away game as an Imps fan and was the location for my first ever Lincoln City away game way back in October 1995 when we won 2-1 with goals from Gareth Ainsworth and Steve Holmes. There were also two sending offs in that game and both managers were also sent to the stands. Somebody should have told me there and then that away games aren't always that exciting.

Over the years i have experienced pretty much every kind of result and performance against the Stags ranging from the dreadful 1-4 home kicking they gave us in 00/01, through to Gisbert Bos scoring the best City goal i have ever seen  in 95/96. Over the years things have been pretty even between the clubs when we have met but the one thing you can say about most of the games is that they are never dull with goals a plenty.

This time round Mansfield have got off to a decent enough start and arrived at Sincil Bank just outside of the playoffs and were fancied to do well following their appearance in the FA Trophy final last season and considering their player recruitment over the summer. Earlier in the season they recorded an impressive run of five wins on the spin but have stuttered a little of late. Like the Imps they came into this match on the back of a 1-3 home defeat and were looking to get back on track. On paper a game against a side in the bottom four and without a manager looked like an ideal opportunity to do just that. Much as i wanted City to win (as always) i must admit i had a feeling in my gut that we weren't going to. Mansfield have some good attacking players and haven't been short of goals this season and we all know what Lincoln's defence has been like of late aka shite.

Apart from the obvious on going situation with the vacant managerial position the other topic that has been discussed by City fans of late is the home attendances. Tonight was one our best attendances of the season but that was only due to the fact that Mansfield brought over 900 with them leaving just about 2000 City fans. Now there is two ways of looking at this. Compared to last season it is pretty crap, but if you take into account that last month we only had 1500 home fans for the Gateshead home match then you could make the case that people are slowly coming back now that Tilson has departed. I think we all accept that crowds are poor at the moment and bridges need to be rebuilt with the fan base after 4 poor seasons on the pitch. There are fans out there, look at the Aldershot crowd for the last game of last season, but it will be a tough sell to get those disillusioned fans back on board.
The Stags lined up with a couple of former Lincoln players in their ranks. I think its fair to say we never got a chance to see the best/worst of Paul Conner as he spent much of his time at Lincoln on the treatment table. But he seems to have got his career back on track in Mansfield and has scored his fair share of goals. In goal the Stags had former long time Imp Alan Marriot who spent 9 seasons with Lincoln before being released by Peter Jackson. As is fitting for a player who has spent such along time with the club he got a decent reception from the Stacey West end at the start of the second half. In my view Marriot was a decent enough lower league keeper. Yes he won us some games single handedly but he also made his fair share of gaffs. You could never fault his commitment to the cause though. I wouldn't say he was the best City keeper i have seen; that honour falls to Barry Richardson. But he will always be remembered for being a good club man, and how often to players stay at one club for nine years these days?

Signed Alan Marriot picture taken in our 5-0 win over Grimsby in
2005/06. Hey who's that good looking chap in the stewards jacket on the left? 

On to the match. The first half was a close cagey affair but it quickly became apparent that both sides were better at going forward than defending. Karl Cunningham made his home debut and once again impressed the City faithful. Sam Smith was having a steady game for Lincoln leading the line while at the other end Matt Green looked very sharp with much of the stags front play going through him.
Clear cut chances were at a premium however. The nearest we came to a goal came in the 38th minute when Fuseini lost the ball to Lindon Meikle who sent an effort crashing against the inside of the far post with the ball running out to safety. City's best effort had come a few moments earlier when Cunningham headed over and was left totally unmarked in the Stags 6 yard box. Although each side had had a few shots not too many were on target. The half ended goalless, with Mansfield maybe slightly shading it.

The second half was thankfully much better than the first. Mansfield built up a head of steam and had a period when they were pretty much camped in the City half. Joe Anyon made a couple of fantastic saves on the line to keep the score goalless but you got the feeling it was when not if that Mansfield would score. But as football so often does things happen when you least expect it!

A long punt down field from Anyon was collected by Gavin McCallum who managed to get goal side of the centre back and slam a volley past Marriot into the goal! 1-0 Lincoln in the 76th minute. Although i was pretty chuffed to say the least i also knew that Mansfield would now throw pretty much everything they had at us.

City brought on former Stags fans favourite Kyle Perry and we all hoped that he would do what so many players do and score against his former club. Alas apart from a great run down the left wing following a great piece of skill and turn of pace he never looked like scoring.
A little piece of Lincoln history was also made tonight when Jordan Thomas became the youngest player ever to play for Lincoln city when he replaced Karl Cunningham. Shortly after that Mansfield got the equaliser in the 86th minute when Green fired in from close range; bugger! But it had been coming.
Both sides had half chances to win it but couldn't take them and a draw was a fair result.

Before the match i would have taken a point. We all know that we need to score two goals to win a game these days such is the rarity  of clean sheets. In all fairness though the Lincoln defence had one of its better nights, with keeper Jo Anyon being the star of the show.  Mitchell Nelson on loan from Bournmouth also impressed me at centre half and is filling the gap left by Josh Gowling as he recovers from injury.
All in all a decent game and a decent point. If you want to read about it from a more Mansfield based source i recommend you check out Mr Rob Waite's excellent 66pow blog