By Nathan Jackson
May 16 2004

One year ago, the Imps beat Scunny in the 1st leg and felt glorious but now we've felt the flip side of the coin and now Wednesday's game is quite literally, a must win for City, otherwise, we're out. A crowd of over 9000 came to Sincil Bank for the first game of the semi finals of the playoffs. Over 2000 came from Huddersfield who also had more then 7,000 in the McAlpine watching on a big screen.

The Yorkshire team dominated the early stages and only good saves from Marriott and wayward shooting from Huddersfield saw them take one of their first 3 chances, however, their 4th resulted in a corner. The ball was header past the on rushing Marriott and made it 1-0.

Then out came the part timers complaining they'd "wasted" 10 minutes of their life to see Huddersfield dominate and they almost made it 2 but Booth's long range shot went WAY off target.

City had their first chance in the 14th minute, a Gary Fletcher throw was launched into the box and went past everyone only to go past the post. It wouldn't have counted anyway as no-one, not even keeper Rachubka could touch it.

The Imps began to dominate the match but nothing seemed to go City's way. Richardson had the next best chance after good work from Ellison down the left saw him cross to Richardson and probably the worst player on the day for either side, made hard work of getting the ball under control and, as usual this afternoon, Richardson lost posession.

The rest of the half was just a midfield based match with strikers either having to feed off the scraps that the midfield provided or screw up completely (not looking in a certain player with 28 on his back).

City came out for the 2nd half like a house on fire. Huddersfield however, we unlucky not to have a short range free kick or even a penalty. Schofield broke through 1-1 with Marriott but Bloomer tugged him bag and the midfielder fell. The linesman signaled for a foul but the ref let play continue.

A melee in the box resulted in Fletcher scoring his 18th of the season. Rachubka, Huddersfield's MOTM produced fine close range saves from Yeo and Futcher but the shot from the later, was palmed right into the path of Fletch who isn't going to miss and open goal from a yard. It sent Sincil Bank into mayhem and was followed by 5 minutes of the Imps chanted "There's only One Lincoln City". However, Sodje appeared to have been in a tangle with Richardson and both were down on the ground with the former needing to be taken off for nearly 10 minutes before eventually being allowed to come back on the pitch.

It looked as though it was deja as City broke through almost immediatly after the restarted. Yeo and Richardson ran 2-1 with the Huddy defender with Yeo running well left before crossing it to Richardson (when it would have been better to shoot) but Richardson tried to back heel it into the net and ended up missing the ball completely.

Huddersfield gained a free kick on the right hand side of the box which was swung in. Marriott made a good saved and Bailey went to clear it but kicked it straight against Mirfin and the ball deflected into the net.

Yeo had the last decent Imps chance but his 25 yard shot failed to get off the ground and proved easy for Rachubka.

The final whistle was met by massive cheers by Huddersfield fans. It was met with the sitting down, hands in heads of fans who were normally out of their seats by that point.

So now City have no choice but to win on Wednesday. At least Keith finally has a half clue, he's finally starting Yeo but taking the wrong man off, Richardson isn't up for the first teams and if he plays like he has for the last few months, he should be slung in the reserves because to be quite honest, he has played bollocks since we gave him a contract.