By Nathan Jackson
January 22 2006

It was a mixed day for Simon Yeo in the minute of his equaliser and sending off, he made 3 very different personal records. Yeo's goal was his 3rd since returning to the Imps, his 3rd ever headed goal for City and his 3rd sending off for the Imps in a controversial afternoon at London Road.

The game started pretty slowly with Peterborough having the slight edge of the Imps in the opening exchanges but their first attempt, from ex-Imp Peter Gain, sailed well over the bar and onto the roof of the stand holding roughly 1600 Lincoln fans. The game went quiet for a while but then, out of no-where, Simon Yeo was free on goal, the forward raced forward and shot against the on-rushing Tyler but Yeo’s effort went just wide of the target.

Yeo had another golden opportunity minutes later when former Peterborough striker, Francis Green broke on the right before crossing to Yeo who could only steer his first time shot around the base of the post and despite wasting 2 golden opportunities, it was a promising start from the Imps. City continued to control the game and forced several corners but typically, nothing came from them. Marvin Robinson had the Imps’ next opportunity when he broke through 1 on 1 with Tyler but Robinson took too long on the ball and Tyler smothered it.

Then, almost completely against the run of play, Peter Gain picked up the ball in the midfield area and took it around Scott Kerr. No Imps player was trying to tackle Gain so the former Imp decided to have a crack from 35 yards and the ball sailed beyond the out-stretched hand of Marriott and into the net for one of the best goals the Lincoln fans have ever seen him score. However, if any of our defenders had tried to close down Gain or block the shot, or indeed if they hadn’t blocked Marriott’s view of the ball, it is highly unlikely that it would have gone in, but it was still a great goal.

In typical Lincoln style, that goal seemed to knock the confidence of the players who just seemed to accept a defeat with over an hour of play to go and Peterborough started to control the game with their long ball, rough tactics. Peterborough were lucky not to have several players sent off but luckily for them, Trevor Parkes was the ref. Parkes is League 2’s equivalent to Steve Bennett, a seemingly self important referee who only cares how he looks rather than how the flow of the game goes and despite having clear views of the incidents, he decided to ignore Lincoln players injuring their faces by throwing them at Peterborough players’ elbows.

The half ended quiet and the second half started in a similar fashion with chances becoming few and far between and the first major incident of the 2^nd half came in the 18^th minute of the half when Colin Cryan was going for the ball with Plummer and the Peterborough man clearly elbowed Cryan and the Imps man went down clutching his face. With blood streaming down his face, Cryan was brought off for Jude Stirling but unsurprisingly, the referee didn’t even talk to Plummer and even Peterborough fans admitted that Parkes bottled a lot of decisions during the game and also admitted that they were shocked that nothing happened because of the elbow.

Stirling was the creator of the next chance. The Imps had won a throw in about 20 yards from goal and Stirling picked the ball up, it reached the 6 yard box within a second and still had enough height to be headed goalwards by McCombe but only a great save from Tyler denied the Imps.

Ollie Ryan and Lee Frecklington came and on for Kerr and Marvin Robinson with 15 minutes to go and Frecklington almost scored his first professional goal for the Imps when the ball fell to him on the edge of the box following a corner, however, the young midfielder’s volley went through everyone and just wide of the post. The other substitute, Ollie Ryan then made a puzzling choice when he was through with Yeo, 2 on 2 against the defence and with both defenders on Yeo, Ryan ran at the keeper before passing to Yeo, who still had both defenders surrounding him and the 32 year old striker couldn’t get his shot in before it was cleared by the defenders. However, Yeo would have mixed luck just minutes later.

City won a free kick on the edge of the area and Steve Robinson delivered a cross deep into the box which Yeo headed down, it went between Tyler’s legs and into the net to send the Lincoln fans in raptures. Yeo ran to celebrate just in front of the fans and stood about 2 metres in front of the fans, however, when the rest of the players came in, it forced Yeo forward and in a week where Chelsea’s Arjen Robben was sent off for going into the crowd, Yeo was given his second yellow card of the game was dismissed. Green had the final chance of the game when he broke through on goal but his shot went well wide of the net.