Shrewsbury Ruin Schofield's Good Week
Lincoln City 0 Shrewsbury Town 4

11th August 2007

A disastrous second half performance saw Lincoln City concede four goals to leave a section of supporters venting their anger and frustrations via the media. The main target for their criticism was Imps' defender Nat Brown, who had a poor game today. In fairness, Brown was far from the only player who experienced a a below par afternoon.

Lincoln gave full Imps' debuts to Gary Croft, Louis Dodds, Steve Torpey and Phil Watt. The inclusion of Torpey raised eyebrows among the Imps' fans as his inclusion came at the expense of Mark Stallard, who was named as a substitute.

The opening goal was scored in the 51st minute when a mistake by Brown saw the ball fall kindly to Andy Cooke, who scored at the second attempt after goalkeeper Alan Marriott had blocked Cooke's initial shot.

The second goal came five minutes later when yet another mistake let Shrewsbury in. This time the culprit was Watt, who misjudged the ball to allow Dave Hibbert to score. Watt's mistake was unfortunate as up to this stage, the youngster had adapted quite well to his first team debut.

Schofield tried to change the fate of the three points by bringing on his three substitutions. Alas these proved ineffectually, and indeed, Shrewsbury doubled their goal tally during the final ten minutes. Shrewsbury's third goal was scored in the 80th minute when Cooke converted Marc Pugh's pass for 3-0. Just ninety seconds later, it became 4-0 when Steven Leslie headed Ben Herd's cross into the net.

The week had begun well for Schofield, when he accepted a promotion to manager plus a new three year contract. Among Schofield's brief is to recruit new players; however, as this is the job of Director of Football John Deehan, there has been speculation that Deehan could find himself redundant. Thankfully, Deehan, who has impressed many supporters during his first season at Lincoln City, has been reassured by the club that he still has a strong role to play in The Imps' development.

One person who might not have a future with the club is winger Ryan Semple, who has joined Conference National club Rushden and Diamonds on a month's loan. This is despite Schofield's summer comments that Semple could play a big part in Lincoln's 2007/08 season. Semple joined Lincoln in summer 2006 but spent last season either injured or on loan.

Meanwhile, it was a mixed week for Imps' midfielder Scott Kerr, who was officially named as the new captain of Lincoln City FC. A vacancy was created following ex-Imp Paul Morgan's decision to quit Lincoln City during the summer. Unfortunately, Kerr's performance against Shrewsbury drew strong criticism.

Finally, Lincoln City have completed the signing of striker Ben Wright from I.K.Start. The move had been agreed a week ago but was held up as Lincoln had to wait for international clearance before completing the paperwork.

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