Grimsby Town 3-1 Lincoln City

Well new year same old bollocks. I seem to recall writing something similar at the same time last year. And erm the one before that as well.
I missed the first derby match on Boxing day(as the above "Official" document shows though with the way the result went i am glad that i did) Although I was as sick as a pig that we managed to throw away a 1-0 halftime lead to lose 1-2, spending the afternoon with a gang of reprobates made the result far easier to take. Plus it was much easier to drown my sorrows. The one plus side to come out of it on the footballing side was that we didn't lose any ground to the teams in the drop zone but even that was scant consolation after to losing to our Lincolnshire rivals of 100 plus years. From what i have read we put up a good show but came up a bit short, in fact from what i was told and read on various sites most Imps fans were quite positive about our performance.
Personally i don't go in for all this clap trap. If you look at the league standings you can tell that both sides are in the bottom third of the 5th tier if English football i.e Shite. Its hard to take anything from a derby defeat but one against a side that hasn't pulled up any trees so far this season really is the pits. All the pre match talk about how well we would prepare for the boxing day game? Well that all went flying out of the window didn't it! "Prepared my arse" as the saying goes. The players and management owed us one. As Queen Victoria once famously said "We are not amused at any defeat by those fishy fellows from Grimsby Town" Well i am sure she must have said something like that at some point in her reign..

Breakfast for 50p

There has been a number of comings and goings on the transfer front in the last week or so. Adam Watts and Josh O'keefe have both left the club. Its fair to say that its never really worked out for O'Keefe at Lincoln City. That's not to say it wont work out for him somewhere else though. You don't come through a Premiership club's youth system unless you have some ability.
In a way i was sad to see Adam Watts go, before he had his leg broken for him at Grimsby a couple of seasons ago he was a very solid centre half and was one of our better players in 2009/10 (and yes i know that doest really say much) He never came back the same player. Throw into the mix that last season he played in one of the worst Imps sides ever, and at 23 was expected to organise the defence, the lad was always up against it. Had he steered clear of injury and had an experienced centre back to play along side of; somebody of Kevin Austin or Steve Holmes stature, then i am convinced the last 12 months would have been so very different for both him and the Imps. I for one really hopes he rebuilds his career. I always thought he was one of the few players that cared about what happened to the club last season.

With Adam gone it was obvious we needed to bring in a centre half in, and we did, when we signed Robbie Williams on loan till the end of the season. No, not the Tunstall gut bucket of Take That fame but the giant AFC Telford defender. I wont pretend to know much about the chap but he seems to know this league quite well having played 45 games in each of the previous two seasons, although injury seems to have stopped him from playing many games this time around.
We have also signed Danny Lloyd-McGoldrick on a deal till the end of the season from our FA Trophy opponents Colwyn Bay. Even though i was at the game i can't say that he stood out for good or bad reasons as the vast quality of Newcastle Brown one consumed has reduced my memory of the match to a mere haze. But he must have done something to impress David Holdsworth so that's good enough for me. I must admit i was underwhelmed with these two signings. That's not to say i think they will be crap, far from it in fact. There are plenty of diamonds to be found in non league football but for every Simon Yeo the Imps have found over the years there are about four Rory Mays out there. I have no doubt that the new boys will be busting a gut to do well at what is the biggest club that either of them have played for and will put the effort in, but its ability that wins football matches. While we were ferreting about in the bargain bin, Grimsby brought in proven quality by snapping up defender Ian Miller from Darlington. Whose transfer policy pays the most dividend remains to be seen but there is certainly more risk in ours but then again maybe that potential gains are also greater?
Anyway enough of the background onto the game itself, the main course if you will.

After a rock and roll new years evening of beer, pizza, Match of the day and great company i was quite fresh and ready for the day ahead. Lee drove to his away day and he did a fine job, aided by my first class directions, i hasten to add. We picked up Mr Delcol at his abode. After he mastered how to adjust the seat in the front of the car he thrust a piece of paper in to my mitt with a grin wider than the Watford Gap. On this paper was my summons to appear in front of the Kangaroo court. He made a fine job of the document if i do say so myself. He has been a very good boy this year and it would appear that after receiving his fisher price computer last year he has upgraded to the real thing this year. In fact a picture of him knocking up the summons appears to have been leaked onto the world wide web as can be seen below.

I can do computers me!

We made our merry way to Cleethorpes easy enough and got parked up thanks to Felice using all his years and years of experience. One thing that we always look forward to when going away to Grimsby is we normally get a great portion of pre match Fish and Chips. Last time we were here a couple of seasons ago we had a cracking pre match filling at the Mariners chippy so we headed there like moths to a lantern. Little could we have foreseen the tripe that awaited us.
When we got there the queue was outside of the shop which is normally a good sign. Plenty of Grimsby fans were queuing up so it was a perfectly acceptable conclusion to draw that the fodder was still of a high standard.

Three of us ordered the fish and chips which came in for less that four quid. So far so good. I took a bite of the fish and it was more than decent enough. However it then nosedived. The chips although quite brown weren't cooked and are to be frank some of the worst i have tasted at football. I enjoyed the fish but it couldn't carry the disappointment of the chips. We all left half of our chips which is pretty much unheard of our for our gang of gannets. Grimsby may have done the double over us this season (Treble if you count the Lincs cup final) but Lincoln has come out top in the pre match chip shop battle. See we can beat them at something!

Fish 7/10 Chips 2/10

Programmes were £3 and came in that awkward 5 inch by 5 inch shape. At one time only Burton Albion produced them in this size but now quite a few clubs are issuing in this format. As a sad twat you collect this kind of shit an avid programme collector this is something i am keen to see put a stop to. They are harder to carry and well its just not cricket old chap. The content inside it was decent enough mind. Just don't like this kind of style. But if it's more cost effective then we will see more of it i suppose.

We got into the ground at about 2.45pm and we seemed to have a reasonable following in well for us anyway. In the end i think it was something like 730 odd City fans made the journey. Normally this would be a decent enough following however its under half the number that Grimsby brought to our place and means that we returned about 400 tickets of our allocation. Its a bit like turning up for a double date with Miss Alex Jones on your arm only for your mate to walk in with Katy Perry in tow. We used to take 2000 plus to Boston on New Years day and Boxing day. If anybody knows where the missing fans have gone please give them a nudge and get them back on the road with the Imps. They might just enjoy it (unless its like this; this was shite).

Joe Anyon was back in goal for the Imps today and it was this that gave rise to my shite fact of the day and it was as follows.

Jo Anyon's last three appearances for Lincoln City football club have been in three separate competitions. The FA Cup v Alfreton, The FA Trophy at Colywn Bay and now the BSP here at Grimsby.
Fascinating, i am sure you will agree. The guys i was with didn't seem to agree. However i think they were just jealous (Or "well jel" as the cool kids say) Of the fact that i was warm in my Pittsburgh Steelers woolly hat and glove set that i was fortunate to receive as a Christmas gift from over the Atlantic.

On the pitch City weren't quick out of the blocks and although Grimsby didn't get many shots in they did have much more of the ball and made all the running. City had a new centre back pairing at the back with new boy Robbie Williams alongside Richard Hinds,the latter being City's man of the match by far in my book. Upfront we never really got much going with Jamie Talyor looking isolated and feeding off mere scraps. Then just as City looked like they had weathered the storm, boom the cods took the lead.
A ball was crossed in from the City right and the City defence stepped up trying to play offside only for it to go tits up. The ball went past everybody, and fell to Grimsbys Liam Hearn who controlled the ball and blasted it past Jo Anyon. A couple of the City players and quite a few fans around me thought it was offside but in my book you have to play to the whistle and we just stopped.
Lincoln had been overrun in midfield up until this point and when they did have the ball we just seemed to panic and scuff the pass. As we tried to up the pace and get back into the the game the mistakes intensified. Anyon had very little to do but so did Grimsbys number one. Then just as the game seemed to be petering out till halftime the homeside struck the killer blow in added on time at the end of the first half. A throw was taken by Grimsby, they controlled it and crossed it in and even though we had three defenders in the box to the one Grimsby player, he still managed to get there first and head his side into a two goal lead.
HT 2-0

Had we gone in at the break 1-0 down i would still have felt that we could have got something out of it but with the Imps facing a 2-0 goal deficit and up against a large home crowd with their tails up, it was always going to be a huge ask for a side that was without several key players and quite a few players who hadn't played together much before.
Things didn't get much better for us in the 2nd half as Grimsby kept us at arms length. We went further down when Grimsby were awarded a penalty when Christophe was penalised for handball after the ball hit him from close range. It looked harsh from where we were sat but we were on the second row behind the far goal so it was tough to say. I think you could definitely make a case that it was ball to hand. Anyhow i wont be watching the goals again so i will never know.
We did pull one back shortly after though when Jamie Taylor finished off a tidy move, although it did get a deflection on the way through, which led me to think it would be given as an O.G but it has now been given to Taylor. City did have a couple of long range efforts but in truth never really looked like getting back into the match. We were treated to a little bit of handbags in the last couple of minutes when a Grimsby player received his marching orders but it made no difference to the match at all.
FT 3-1
Felice said throughout the game that i needed to try and be a bit more positive about things. I thought i was very positive. I was positive that we were dreadful today. If i am to scratch around in the dirt of disappointment looking for a scrap of positivity like a chicken looking for the first grain of the morning then i will say that Hinds played well at CB. Taylor did well for the goal and it was good to see Sam Smith get some game time as he works his way back from injury. Bar that, one is struggling somewhat.

Happy New Year my Arse.

Football ground or WW2 POW camp. You decide