Lincoln City
City have a great chance to near-enough secure safety
By Slevin Morgan
February 18 2010
Lincoln City could near enough secure Football League status with a win at Grimsby Town on Saturday. A victory would move City thirteen points clear of their hosts with fifteen games to play, and given that Grimsby have just beaten their own record for longest time without a League victory, it's a great chance for the Imps to secure their first win in over three years against the Mariners.
There's nothing quite like a local derby to make even the most passive of fan to become passionate again and this year's promises to possibly be the most vital out of all of them since Grimsby returned to this division in 2004. Five points behind having played a game more than the team above them, Grimsby are in desperate need of a much needed three points, something they have often gotten against the Imps in recent times.
In the last two months the Imps have slowly moved away from the drop zone and despite losing double the amount of away games that they've not lost, the Imps will probably go into the fixture as favourites to win for numerous reasons. Grimsby haven't won since September 19th and have only recorded one home victory all season, way back on September 12th, however, City fans know after last season not to rest on their laurels.
11 months ago City travelled to Blundell Park to face a team who had won just four games all season at that point. 90 minutes and five Grimsby goals later, most fans had turned against Jackson and many realised that he wasn't the man for City. It also lead to Nathan Jackson, the former runner of this site, to give his infamous "You're Deluded!" rant.
The truth is that Grimsby don't actually lose that many games any more. Granted, they have lost fourteen of their thirty matches.........but that's two fewer than the Imps who have lost sixteen of their thirty.
The club's have battled out in the Playoffs, the JP trophy and in several high scoring games, but no game has probably been more important in Grimsby's history.
You'll be shocked to hear Stefan Oakes is injured again. Sicknote has only played more than two games in a row once during this season and even though I'm a fan of Oakes, it really is getting beyond a joke how often he is injured. Since joining this club, City have played 85 games and Oakes has played in just 47 of those, most of which have either seen him either come off of the bench or barely play an hour, barely over half.
Nathan Baker, Paul Connor and Paul Green are also rated as unlikely to play any part. This should mean a start for Lennon after the striker produced a fine finish in Tuesday's win over Accrington.
| OUR EXPECTED CITY STARTING LINE UP | |
 | Burch will be looking to put last year’s defeat behind him and to help City to their first win over the Mariners since December 2006 |
 | Watts came closest out of anyone to scoring in the game at Sincil Bank and is quickly becoming City’s star defender. We hopefully won’t have as many problems with the Grimsby defence as Janos did last year |
 | Swaibu returns after suspension and with Baker injured, is likely to make a return straight to the starting line up The defender will play his first ever game at Blundell Park after missing out on last season’s 5-1 hammering. |
 | Anderson provided the cross for Pearce to whack the ball against Kempson on Tuesday night, so he should be in a pretty good mood at the moment. He still looks a bit frail but is gradually improving. Hopefully now that Sicknote isn’t play, he can start taking the set-pieces again. |
 | Hughton will more than likely cover right back again in the absence of any other right sided defenders. |
 | <---Matt Saunders Saunders returned to the club on Tuesday and come on from the bench to change the game. If he’s fully fit then he’ll more than likely play. |
 | Kerr joined the Imps in 2005 after rejecting a move to Grimsby Town. He has been red-carded in recent years at Blundell Park and will be hoping for his first ever win at Grimsby……which says it all as he is our longest serving player. |
 | <----Chris Herd Chris is still a class above anything we currently have at the club, but he needs to start learning to pass and not running into corners when we’re on the attack. |
 | Gilmour continues to improve all the time and links up the midfield quite well. Maybe he could be the star main against a side who mainly struggle against City's smaller players. |
 | <----Drewe Broughton Broughton made his debut on Tuesday night and proceeded to impress very few with his play. He’ll more than likely start on Saturday….unfortunately. |
 | <---Steven Lennon In the space of three games, Lennon has moved in to become the joint top goalscorer of any player still at the club (that is still actually physically here) with a grand total of two…big numbers. |
The clubs got to know each other very well during the 2000-2010 having played each other fifteen times during that time period.
It all started in the League Cup in 2001 as City were drawn to play away to then Division 1 (as it was known back then) in the League Cup. Battersby opened the scoring for the Imps before Jevons and Rowan turned the game around for the Mariners. They would later go on to record a famous victory at Anfield a few rounds later.
The clubs wouldn't meet again until December 2004 and it appeared to be heading for a goal-less draw until Grimsby controversially had a goal from Reddy disallowed in the fifth minute of injury time. City made the reverse trip just over three weeks later. A Simon Yeo double was cancelled out by Pinault and Coldicott, but Grimsby were level for about 40 seconds as Yeo quickly riffled in a Taylor-Fletcher cross to put City back in the lead. Cian Toner completed the scoring with City's fourth.
It was almost a year before the club's met again. A very cold midweek evening just after Christmas 2005 greeted the clubs and in an almost ironic twist of fate, the man who had scored the last goal in the previous game scored the first in this one. Ciaran Toner has left the Imps because of alledged argument with Marcus Richardson that involved racism on both sides, he joined up with the Mariners. Michael Reddy and Parkinson completed to scoring against the Imps side who barely had a realistic chance on goal.
Under three months later came the game at Sincil Bank between the sides and despite Grimsby dominating the opening exchanges, Luke Foster opened the scoring with a heard following on from a Mayo throw. Former Grimsby player Jamie Forrester was making his debut for the Imps, he made an immediate impression by lobbing Mildenhall from around 30 yards. Mayo scored from the spot to make it three and Robinson made it four with his knee, Francis Green had also hit the bar.......all of this in the first half. A Lee Beevers shot took a heavy deflection off of ex-Imp Ben Futcher for the fifth.
However, it was Grimsby who were laughing six weeks later as the teams met in the Playoffs. Gary Jones scored the only goal at Sincil Bank to give Grimsby the advantage. Marvin Robinson drew the tie level at Blundell Park before Futcher and Jones saw off City. Gary Jones had been sent off for Grimsby but Keith Alexander spoke on his behalf so that he could play in the final. Grimsby would lose to Cheltenham in the final, making them the only club to have beaten City in the Playoffs and not won promotion.
The JP Trophy saw the next meeting between the sides and Simon Rayner produced a brilliant display to keep a lacklusture City in it. This game came in between the 5-0 win at Barnet and the 7-1 thrashing of Rochdale, but it would be Grimsby who would go through on penalties after a 0-0 draw. Jamie Forrester was the only man to miss hit spot kick.
Forrester made up for it two months later and he score the first goal in a 2-0 win over Grimsby at Sincil Bank. Lee Frecklington completed the scoring as the Imps comfortably beat Grimsby, whom Gary Jones had seen red for again. City haven't beaten Grimsby since.
The penultimate game of the regular 2006/7 season saw the Imps dominate again but fail to score as the game finished 0-0, a result that near enough confirmed City's participation in yet another ill-fated Playoffs.
Grimsby recorded their first League win at Sincil Bank thanks to goals from Whittle and Toner, Forrester had equalised for a City side who had otherwise been very poor. Grimsby completed the double when Jones scored at Blundell Park with a minute to go, although he had been handed a gift by on-loan Ben Smith as the goalkeeper failed to hold the shot.
Last season saw the clubs draw 1-1 at Sincil Bank as Lee Frecklington's penalty levelled after a Till opener. It was City's first point of the season.......the less said about the return fixture the better.
The club's played out their fourth 0-0 earlier this season.
It's safe to say that Grimsby will be glad to see the back of this season. Having already broken their record for the longest run without a League win, they are extremely close to breaking their club record for the longest spell without a victory.
Grimsby started their season badly as they lost their first four games in all competitions, two by a 2-1 scoreline and the other two by a 4-0 deficit. A 1-0 win over Bury proved to give them their opening points of the season but they returned to losing ways as they lost 2-1 at Aldershot and gained another 4-0 defeat, this time at Port Vale.
Back to back victories over Hereford and Torquay United were a bit of a false dawn as the Mariners have not recorded a single win in any competition since then. However, they aren't getting thrashed on the regular basis that they were before, infact, they're not losing many games at all. Even if you look back to their last win, they've only actually lost eight times since then.
I have personally seen Grimsby three times this season. Once when they played at Sincil Bank and I also went twice with Nathan when they played Morecambe and Grimsby. Nathan also went to see them against Notts County last night and provided me with a photo of their support (see below), not bad numbers for a 2 hour drive on a Wednesday night.
To be honest, they aren't a bad side from what I've seen but just lack a natural finisher. However, with a goalkeeper as vunerable as Colgan, you're regularly going to struggle. He was at fault for both of Port Vale's goals in the aforementioned games, whereas he almost cost Grimsby a point last night as he failed to catch a shot that was nearly 30 yards out.
I hate predicting local derbies but there is no doubt that the Imps are due a win against their rivals. The biggest factor could easily be Grimsby's motivation not to equal their club record of 22 games without a win, the second time in two seasons that they've actually broken their long run without a win.
It's hard to really predict as Lincoln were dreadful on Tuesday evening, but Grimsby have offered virtually nothing up front whenever I've seen them. I think the difference that we finally seemed to have found a natural finisher in Lennon could prove to be the difference.
Grimsby 0 Lincoln 1
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18/02/2010 12:25
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A draw away to Notts is also very commendable.
If they turn them into wins, they won't go down.
All of which means it is a tough tough game on Saturday.
Great post by the way, very informative
Not going at work but should be home for kick off.
Reckon it will be a draw which will suit me fine.
If we can ride our luck like Tuesday who knows.
Lets hope Saunders starts he makes all the difference at the start of both the goals on Tuesday.
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