If this was LinkedIn, which is where the headline comes from, I’m sure yesterday would have been described as dealing in a challenging environment…
I was going to start off writing about Champions Elect 1 Also Rans 0 and the hierarchy of defeats.
You know, how an 88th goal that shouldn’t have stood is somehow better than losing 5-0 away from home in the pissing rain against cannon fodder.
This is a weird one though, because reading the badly typed notes that I create during the game on my phone this morning – it doesn’t feel quite so bad after all.
Don’t get me wrong, here. I’m still pissed off at losing in such a manner. And I’m not saying we deserved to lose after all, because we didn’t.
But the way the game was going, Lincoln were going to score somehow, no matter how unlikely they looked to do so.
If you watch games for any number of years, you get a sixth sense of things. And throughout the second half, I had exactly that feeling we’d come away empty handed.
Granted, the day started well when your editor found a chippy that did sausage, chips and proper gravy with little beefy bits for a fiver.
I think it was beef, anyway. Tasted nice, mind you, and one of the few perks of going up north is decent chippy grub.
And while I’d definitely be happier with just another couple of points on the tally board, it is starting to feel like the season is winding down for us.
Even the team news was as good as we can hope for at the moment. Bishop coming back in goal wasn’t a surprise, and I think we looked more solid with him than McDonnell.
Though it was interesting Bauer started with Lewis and Johnson too.
And while we know who we’re missing – we didn’t play that badly at all. OK, Lincoln shot straight at Bishop within thirty seconds, but after that?
Not that we can actually score right now, although I have noticed something that might contribute to it.
This wasn’t just yesterday, either. Whenever we get in a shooting position, for some reason we don’t shoot. We try and do an extra move, when HAFSOG might get us something.
We seem to be afraid of pulling the proverbial trigger. Hell, I wouldn’t trust our lot pulling an actual trigger.
They hit the bar from a free kick, in a first half that they didn’t show much else in, and while we didn’t create too much in the way of opportunities everyone was quite content at half time.
While Johnson went off at the break (ballooned ankle, according to JJ afterwards), people were still thing that maybe, just maybe, we could still do something.
As said earlier, there was something in the back of my mind throughout the second half that was nagging away at me.
Whether it was Lincoln getting free kicks in the second half that they weren’t getting in the first, or Bishop’s rugby union-esque kicking I don’t know.
When Nelson blasted over the bar from less than twelve feet out, it was hard not to believe the sucker punch was coming.
And on 88 minutes, with the home side getting more and more restless, the seemingly inevitable happened.
Sometimes, your luck really is out.
Yes, it was a handball by Riley “Doors” Trowler, and no we didn’t deserve to go behind in such a fashion.
But it was coming, and I think the general annoyance afterwards was knowing that we should be doing better up front.
This is why I found JJ’s post-match comments interesting, because he’s telling our current strikeforce to get their arses into gear.
I haven’t seen the video, but I can well guess his pissedoffness (?) from just reading the tone of his words.
And this current strikeforce are capable of finding the net at least once in a while. They’ve got perfect opportunities to stake the proverbial claim and they’re not taking it.
We’ve got Luton at PL on Monday, and the Hatters are most certainly beatable. I would hope our players will use that as an opportunity to right the wrongs of the last couple of games.
Maybe I even expect them to…
Plus points: We played well. Undone by a non-goal. Good movement. Defended well enough.
Minus points: We lost. Not finding the net. Still a bunch of eunuchs up front.
The referee’s a…: Aside from their goal, he decided to book Bishop for having the ball moving around at a dead ball situation, because of the wind.
I’m becoming more convinced this morning that had it been 0-0 at 94 minutes he would have awarded a penalty to them, even if we were attacking their end.
Them: Remember in our days in the non-league backwaters, when we were about to get promoted, but just getting those final points were the hardest of the lot?
Lincoln had exactly that air yesterday, and while they only now need a point, their celebration when they scored was relief more than anything.
And yes, it was the kind of goal a side about to win the title gets. No, I’m still not bitter at it, honest.
Their fans could be forgiven for pinching themselves, though. The vibe beforehand was a bit, “fuck me we could go up today”.
To be fair, I don’t begrudge Lincoln their likely promotion one bit.
You can’t argue with a run without defeat stretching back to the middle of November, and I genuinely hope they get their League fixture with Tottenham next season.
And not just because Spurs going down would be one of the most entertaining non-AFCW events of recent years.
That said, I do wonder how they’ll do in the second tier next season. If they get a bad start, they could well finish rock bottom and get torn apart most weeks.
Like Wycombe, Doncaster, Yeovil and probably Oxford, I expect their stay there won’t be too long.
One wonders how Sincil Bank will cope with Championship football next season (and yes, how will Championship sides cope with going there as well).
It was your editor’s first ever visit there, which makes it just Stoke, Hull and Everton’s new gaff for the 91 Club to be completed.
I’m also counting going to WHU’s ground because I have seen a sporting event there.
Imagine Wolves or Burnley going there in a late-August Friday night fixture on Sky and losing 1-0 there.
The walk up is a bit traditional, and you can imagine the dewey-eyed puff pieces about how “romantic” and “old school” it all is, in deeply patronising tones.
Oh, and our club shop is better than theirs. And ours doesn’t look or smell like a charity shop.
Point to ponder: Just why are we so shit around Easter?
There was a stat being bandied about beforehand that AFCW has one of the worst records on Good Friday, and while I don’t think we’re the worst – I dread this time of year.
I don’t think we’ve ever been that good around this time of year, even back in the WFC era.
The only games on GF that I ever remember us winning were the Palace 4-0 at Selhurst on Sky, and beating one of the Bath teams at KM when we got promoted to the Conference.
And that’s it.
What our record is like on Easter Mondays I can’t be arsed to find out, but I doubt it’s much better.
The question is, why? Are we secretly a bunch of Jesuits who think that playing on Good Friday is an immortal sin?
While the three incarnations of us have never been religion-affiliated, thank Satan, you do have to think there’s something at this time of year that stifles us.
It’s probably just one of those strange co-incidences, but it wouldn’t hurt just trying a bit of the old other world stuff, just in case.
Before the game on Monday, perhaps we should find a priest who could do a exorcism on the PL pitch so we don’t keep shitting the bed around this time of year.
Voodoo would be better, though. The problem is, I doubt if we would be allowed to do a sacrifice on the field.
Although maybe we could get a KFC bargain bucket as an alternative to the Almighty instead…
Truth is stranger than fiction: 1) Finding a local street named after your editor. No, it wasn’t called Gropecunt Lane. 2) Lincoln Central NCP car parking charges. Yes, that’s in Lincoln. Parked elsewhere, unsurprising, and no wonder NCP are in admin.
Anything else? I don’t know what Lincoln’s accounts will be like, but they could give hope to the likes of us in future years.
Them almost-certainly going up, with a ground just very slightly bigger than ours, shows what teams with a bit of good planning and a little bit of luck and consistency can do.
It’s easy to get sucked in with the “aura” of the bigger named clubs that drop into L1, that it’s inevitable they will get the three promotion spots.
It’s not, and clubs like ourselves – if we get our act together – can make legitimate attempts to get into the second tier.
L1 will have the Cardiffs and Sheffield Wednesdays of this world, teams who have absolutely shit the bed and are rebuilding.
But then there are the teams like Bolton, Reading, and Luton who have (or will be) down here for a good reason.
They’re not all that. As perhaps we might see for ourselves first hand this Monday.
Indeed, this season alone I wasn’t massively impressed with the Hatters on the first game of the season, with Cardiff at PL and Bolton in the second half at our place.
Though the less said about the game at the Reebok Stadium the better.
Actually, L1 generally isn’t that special a division, and Lincoln going up shouldn’t be a total surprise after all.
For us, as SW19 said last update, our problem is that we’re 90% of the way there but we need that extra 10% as both a team and a club.
We’re playing too well to be legitimate relegation candidates, for a start. If you don’t believe me, just read the Exeter forum right now on their game at Blackpool yesterday.
They have the deflated attitude we had in our last L1 season. Our problem right now is that we just can’t score goals.
And while there’s things we need to do in close season (a new defence, bolster the attack as much as possible, and sort out off-field cash injections), that’s not insurmountable.
The same could apply to so many other sides in this division, of course. But I went to Sincil Bank yesterday, saw the home team and thought to myself, that could be us…
So, was it worth it? At least I’ve seen a new ground.
In a nutshell: Good Friday, my arse.