By Nathan Jackson
March 26 2007

City suffered a 6th home defeat of the season against Swindon Town in yet another Jekyll/Hyde performance from City. It was the first time since October 22 that City had taken the lead and lost. The defeat also came exactly a year after that 5-0 victory over Grimsby last season.

I calculate that this season I will inevitably spend around £2,500 following my team. That money will be spent on a season ticket, a new shirt, a few pints of coke before the match, match tickets, petrol costs, programmes, food if I’m hungry, and just several other random little things that football fans buy. All of that goes towards following the club that I’ve loved this club for 16 of my 22 years on this planet, and I’ve come to expect several things whilst watching Lincoln City. The most disappointing aspect that I’ve come to expect is that every once in a while this club will give you hope, make you believe that maybe, just maybe, that this might finally be our season, but hope is a dangerous thing to offer to a Lincoln City fan.

 

Occasionally this club will actually do something to make you proud to be a Lincoln City fan, that night at Maine Road just over 10 years ago, the first time we made the playoffs, that game at Fulham last season, but more often that not this club let’s you down, and it appears to be doing that act all over again. I don’t know what it is about this team that can make me feel love one minute and then pure unadulterated frustration the next.

 

For the first 15/20 minutes of Sunday’s game we were battering Swindon, and if it hadn’t been for Junior Mendes wasting two great chances then we might be talking in a completely different context. Stallard took his opening goal brilliantly after a 13 pass move, and I know I’ve slagged off Stallard once or twice this season, but he is inevitably the most impactful player we have at this club. With him in the side, the rest of the team just seems to come together, they seem to be able to link play up really well, and then he’ll get the odd goal or two.

 

It as no surprise however that the side completely changed tactics once. Within the space of 5 minutes we went from playing brilliant football, stringing several passes together and creating chances, to a side that, put simply, would scare the crap out of any planes flying above. It was sort of like the John Schofield reign to date, attempting to fix something that isn’t broken and then it all going tits-up.

 

In the 33^rd minute, I was turning to my friend and saying “Wow, didn’t see that coming” in a sarcastic manner as my Swindon supporting friend turned towards me and started to rub it in my face. We had just changed our tactics from something that was working, to something that wasn’t even causing them any problems.

 

That’s been our problem all season, ironically it was away at Swindon that saw the final game of the “Dream Period” for this season, since then we’ve been fed rubbish. I mean we were the best footballing side in this division back in October, thrashing teams 5-0 one week and then 7-1 the next, then in November we reverted to hoofball for no apparent reason and it’s gone downhill since then.

 

As for Schofield’s statement at the beginning of the season, “Play well and you’ll be in the side” I’m sorry for saying this John because I really appreciate the chance of automatic promotion you’ve given us, but that was quite frankly a complete load of bollocks coming out of your mouth when you said that wasn’t it? Why is it that you constantly drop our most in-form players?

Spencer Weir-Daley was in fine form in the middle of February, then he’s dropped without Forrester even having to fight for his place in the side. You dropped Moses after several weeks of solid performances, you’ve left our most passionate player on the bench for the last two games, and you seem oblivious to when a player is having an incredibly bad game.

 

I rate Paul Morgan as a defender, but he had arguably his worst ever performance in a City shirt, and 5,000 odd other fans can see it, why can’t the management? Waiting for us to go 3-1 down and little time for comeback to bring him off? Surely I’m not the only one who thought it was a coincidence that as soon as Beevers came on, we  all of a sudden regained the momentum that we’d had earlier in the game. If that had happened 20 minutes earlier then we would have got something out of today’s game.

 

I know some of the players think I’m always looking for a scapegoat when we lose, but surely the players must realise that we’ve been a pile of crap for ages now. We have a great chance of going up automatically, but we’re seriously starting to run out of games in which to catch up. If you’re not going to do it for yourselves, then do it for the fans, they’ve paid a lot of money over the last 5 years only to be heartbroken every time, please don’t let that happen again.