Lincoln City 0-0 Carshalton Athletic

FA Trophy 2nd Round.

Well that's cup football for you chaps. Carshalton Athletic of the Ryman Premier league (two levels below the not so mighty Imps) comfortably held their own for much of this FA Trophy second round tie.
The match had quite a low key feel to it. Only the Echo stand and the lower Co-op stand were open to City supporters. Carshalton brought 147 supporters with them and they were given half of the South Park stand. Although 147 doesn't sound like a huge following they often only get 200 or so for there home matches so based on that and the fact that they are based in South London makes it an impressive following in this scribe's humble eyes. They made a decent amount of noise whilst waving their (rather new looking) claret and white bar scarfs around in the air.

We parked our arses in the co-op stand for this epic encounter just to the right hand side of the halfway line. Its very rare that we sit in this stand but the view of the ground was very good. Unlike the football that the Imps served up which for the most part was dire. I didn't feel too inconvenienced by having to move stands. I have watched football on all four sides of Sincil Bank and the football is by and large shit whichever you sit. A reduced programme was also issued costing £2 for a massive eight pages which was a tad disappointing in my view and not really value for money at all. Admission for this thrilling encounter was a mere £10 pounds. As this was a massive match i didn't want to chance it selling out and thus i bought my ticket before Christmas. In the end i needn't have worried. A mere 1,743 hardy souls were in attendance and all but the 147 away supporters must have wondered why they had bothered watching this tripe in the freezing cold when all the pubs were open.

City had two new faces in the line up with recently signed Paul Robson starting at right back. The City line up had been changed quite a bit due to three players being cup tied, centre half Robbie Williams being one of them which meant a debut for Matthew Pearson signed on loan from Blackburn Rovers.
Pre game i thought that Carshalton would come and put 11 men behind the ball and offer very little up front. To their credit they didn't do this and looked to get forward whenever they could. Although City had plenty of the ball we did very little with it in an attacking sense. It was the visitors who nearly took the lead in the early on when Athletic striker Paul Vines forced Joe Anyon to tip his effort onto the base of the post. City struggled to get any efforts on target with Conal Platts tamely hit free kick in the 9th minute being the best that City could muster. Sam Smith was playing up front with Jamie Taylor and neither looked totally match fit. Smith's first touch let him down on a number of occasions. The game was mainly being played in midfield with Tyrone Thompson having his best game for City. Half time was met with the sound of booing ringing from the stands with the visitors looking comfortable and well in the match.  Carshalton's manager is also the club's owner he must have been pleasantly surprised at how easy it had been for his team.

We all agreed that something had to change at halftime and David Holdsworth obliged. Jamie Taylor was withdrawn and Alan Power brought on and it seemed to be the rocket up the arse of the City team.
Lincoln did pick up the pace in the second half and forced the visitors to defend much deeper and limited them to a few break aways. Upfront Lincoln still struggled to get many efforts on target and when we did look to get a shot away, a Carshalton body managed to get a great block in. Power was running the show for City but it still wasn't enough to put any sustained pressure on the visitors goal. Five minutes of added time was added by the ref and it was deep into this that City came closes to scoring when Alan Power's chip from 20 yards out clipped the top of the bar.
The final whistle was greeted by an even louder set of boos as the visitors celebrated. They had forced a replay and thoroughly deserved it. For all of Lincoln's possession their keeper was never really tested and i doubt that he will need to wash his kit before the replay Tuesday night.

There was/is a lot of anger amongst Lincoln City fans after this result and i can thoroughly understand why. On paper this was a very winnable tie for the Imps and we were for the most part garbage. Credit must go to the visitors who played very well today but in truth City made it easy for them.

I am a pints half full kind of chap, so i am going to look at the positives out of it.. Yes it has taken a while but there was a few decent performances out there. The back four looked solid for the most part. Thompson looked the best i have seen him and when Power came on it he looked a cut above everybody else on the park. The main plus point for me is that despite playing like a bunch of turkeys and creating very little against a side two levels below us we are still in the competition and live to fight another day. It may not be much comfort at the moment but we are still in there. Yes it would have been nice to have gone through at the first time of asking but hey this is Lincoln City football club and we NEVER do things the easy way do we folks?

Keep the faith
Up the Imps.