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Grimsby:
Take One!
12th May 2006
On Saturday, Lincoln City FC play one of their most
important Lincolnshire derbies of all time, when Grimsby
Town visit Sincil Bank for a League Two Play-off
semi-final first leg tie.
Tomorrow is reminiscent of the 2002/03 season when
Lincoln qualified for the play-offs, only to face
Scunthorpe United in the semi-final.
It seemed a daunting prospect for Lincoln but they
overcame the odds to record a 6-3 aggregate victory over
Scunthorpe. The first leg was played at Sincil Bank where
Lincoln won 5-3. The match belonged to Simon Yeo, whose
hat-trick led to him becoming a Lincoln City legend.
Prior to this match, he had struggled to hold down a
first team spot due to a lack of goals.
Just like then, Lincoln face their other county rivals
Grimsby Town tomorrow, as underdogs. Just like then, Yeo
has not been a recent regular in The Imps' first team,
although this time it is due to injury and not a lack of
form.
Psychology will prove to be a key factor in this battle,
as Grimsby must overcome the knowledge that they lost 5-0
at Sincil Bank on March 24th. It is only a few weeks ago
and nothing has changed at Lincoln bar one exception. The
only exception was that Yeo was absent that day due to
his injury.
Grimsby have further woes because several of their
players are not fully fit. Tom Newry, Gary Croft and
former Imp Ciaran Toner have not trained all week. All
three are a doubt for this match.
Should Toner play then he will face the club who were
effectively forced to allow him to leave for disciplinary
reasons. In February 2006, Toner was involved in an
incident with then Imps' striker Marcus Richardson. The
outcome was that neither player played for Lincoln City
again, and both left soon afterwards either via mutual
consent or on loan. Toner was released last June when his
Lincoln City contract expired and signed for Grimsby.
Grimsby main concern is striker Michael Reddy, who has a
groin problem. His injury forced him to be named as a
substitute for last week's match at Northampton. Reddy
has scored fourteen goals this season and Grimsby manager
Russell Slade has highlighted his desperation for Reddy
to play.
Slade bemoaned: "Without Redds we have had to rely
on the goals of Gary Jones in the last half dozen games
and that has stretched us."
Grimsby must also try and lift themselves from the
disappointment of missing automatic promotion. Last
Saturday, they were leading Northampton Town by a goal to
nil, as the match entered stoppage time. Grimsby had even
mistakenly released some balloons but their promotion
party was subject to a false start.
After the stoppage time had been played, the outcome was
that Northampton had equalised while Leyton Orient had
scored a winning goal. This meant that Grimsby missed
automatic promotion to Orient, and must now try to win
promotion via the play-offs.
Lincoln head into this match with a fully fit squad.
Left-back Jeff Hughes' confidence has been further buoyed
by participating in Northern Ireland Under-21's victory
over Liechtenstein. Hughes is one of several
internationals current on the books of Lincoln City FC.
These two clubs first met in the FA Cup of 1884/85
season, when Grimsby defeated Lincoln on 3rd January 1885
via a 1-0 score line. Click here for a historical round-up of all the
major competitive between these two clubs.
| Odds
For the game |
| Lincoln City |
11/8 |
| Draw |
11/5 |
| Grimsby Town |
15/8 |
Odds kindly supplied by Sporting
Odds, who
regularly offer free bets to customers. To ensure that
you obtain the freshest offer, you will need to click
this link and register immediately - so please return to
this page first, if necessary.
Please click the links to view cheap merchandise for Grimsby
Town, Leyton
Orient, Lincoln
City, Northampton, Scunthorpe
United or the 2006 World
Cup in
general.
Click here for more Lincoln City news
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