By Nathan Jackson
October 19 2005

City's 7 month winless run on the road continues after a 2-1 defeat at Tranmere in the LDV Vans Trophy First Round. A Nat Brown goal was sandwiched by goals from Rankine and Jennings, however, with a bit more luck (or if either ref knew the rules) City could have had 3 penalties and facing 10 men.

City got the game underway in front of a reduced crowd on a rather brisk night on the Wirral. One potential future talking point will be that Paul Morgan appears to have been stripped of the captaincy after Gareth McAuley was given the armband tonight, despite Morgan returning from his 2nd suspension this season.

Rovers began the stronger and sent in some testing balls into the box but none of them came to anything and as it turned out, it turned out that Gary Birch had the games first oppurunity but his shot from around the penalty spot was blocked the tranmere defence. Tranmere answered straight back when Jenning's 20 yard strike was deflected out for a corner, however, Ian Sharpes headed the resultant ball wide.

Delroy Facey had a golden chance to put Tranmere 1-0 up when he was put through 1 on 1 with Marriott and the keeper left him plenty of space on either side to shoot but Facey's chip went just wide of the post when he should have easily made it 1-0 to the hosts.

Ex-Tranmere player, Marvin Robinson wasted his own good chance after 15 minutes when Asamoah played him through but Robinson's first time shot went considerably over the bar. Tranmere continued to generally control the game but Asamoah had the next oppurunity when he took a corner that was returned to him, he decided to shoot and the ball went out for a throw.

Former Mansfield striker, Chris Greenacre then showed the skill that saw him play at a higher level when his bicycle kick caused trouble in the box and Marriott tipped it over single handedly. However, Achterburg was lucky to stay on the pitch minutes later. The keeper confusingly threw the ball straight at Asamoah and the striker tried to round Achterburg before being brought down by the keeper who failed the win the ball and it was a definate red card offence but the referee just waved play on, claiming that Asamoah had dived. Why would he dive when he has, quite literally, an open goal to run at?

Within 3 minutes, the referee did little else to endear himself to City fans when Rankine and McAuley were both going for the ball. Rankine pushed McAuley (none shoulder barge) off the of the ball but the referee played on and a deflection took the ball over Marriott to make it 1-0. What made fans even more annoyed by this was that the referee had given Tranmere free kicks when City had done the exact same thing.

The referee continued to give odd decisions, Foster fouled Rankine on the half way line but waved advantage, he was more than happy to let play go on as Greenacre ran forward, however, McAuley won possession and started running before the referee blew to give the free kick from before because no advantage had been given apparantly and Foster was subsquently booked.

However, City were back on terms before the end of the half when Nat Brown shot from the edge of the area, it took a deflection and snuck past Achterburg, the referee however looked like he was ready to disallow the goal (for no good reason), however, several looks from City players convinced him otherwise and City were rather undeservedly level.

Another penalty looked set to come City's way when Robinson was brought down in the area by Achterburg but the referee gave a free kick outside of the area, despite the mark that had been created by the foul being clearly inside the area and to take the piss even more, Robinson got straight back up and was running towards goal (where was your damn advantage this time ref?). Nothing came from the free kick.

The first thing the referee did all night came just after the hour when he had ot be replaced due to a hamstring injury, something that was met with very loud cheers by the Imps' fans. Birch was replaced by Molango who immediatly got into the action by providing a cross into the box that Robinson headed over from very close range.

Chances were few and far between but City had started to get into the game more than before the game but couldn't create any decent going before then being denied another penalty. A scramble in the box saw a Tranmere defender seemingly wanting to give McAuley a piggy-bank before making him fall over and the new referee gave the League 1 side a free kick, how much of a joke was this becoming, is there a rule in the book that says "IF YOU WANT TO WIN A FREE KICK, JUMP ON YOUR OPPONENTS BACK"

Tranmere then made it 2-1 when Jennings went on an impressive run until bursting into the box and shooting past a helpless Marriott. Tranmere then started completely dominating again and were unlucky not to go 3-1 up within a minute but Greenacre wasted another chance.

The game slowly fizzled out with only one more talking point. Beevers sent in a free kick that went over everyone and was caught by Achterburg, however, the keeper started going backwards into his goal and was about 3 feet inside his goal before he started coming back and it looked (verified by several Tranmere fans) as though it had crossed the line, however, even if it did, there was no way in hell either referee would have allowed it and City quitely went out of the LDV before the Quarters for the 4th time in 5 years after a rather poor performance.