A Murphy Moment?

20th August 2007

Lincoln City FC's season finally ignited last Saturday when they defeated Mansfield Town, at Mansfield, by a 3-1 scoreline.

This much needed win came on the back of a demoralising 4-1 League Cup defeat at Doncaster, last Tuesday. This match saw a disjointed Imps' side concede sloppy goals on their way to a predictable cup exit. Jamie Forrester provided one of the few bright spots, when he got his goal tally off the mark via a late consolation strike.

and so on to Mansfield.....

Although demoralised, the club had been spurred on by two pieces of good news. The first was that promising young winger Owain Warlow had finally agreed to his new two-year contract. Lincoln's supporters have sweated over Warlow's future for the past two months after it emerged that he was rejecting the new contract. To illustrate Warlow's promise, he has been called into the Wales' Under-21 squad for their match in Sweden.

The second pieced of good news concerned the signing of Jamie Hand from Chester City, although at first, some supporters doubted whether this signing would be beneficial. However, after an excellent debut at Mansfield, it appears that Hand will improve Lincoln's midfield, especially as he showed good vocal skills and general awareness.

The match began well for Lincoln when Louis Doods somehow scored in the 2nd minute despite close attention from four Mansfield Town players. This was Dodds' first goal for Lincoln City - hopefully, the first of many!

Mansfield levelled the scored in the 35th minute when Lincoln's Paul Green pushed Michael Boulding to concede a penalty. Boulding took responsibility and slotted the ball past Alan Marriott for 1-1.

For the first time this season, Lincoln showed character and they were rewarded just a minute later when Dany N'Guessan's cross was deflected into the Mansfield net by Town's Martin McIntosh for an own goal. N'Guessan was another Lincoln player who impressed. If he can gain confidence, then he should became a feared winger as he appears keen to take on defenders with his dribbling skills. So far, N'Guessan has only showed snippets of his skill, but surely a run in the first team will help his consistency.

The final goal will please a section of Lincoln's fans who were very vocal about Mark Stallard being dropped for Steve Torpey. Faced with a difficult decision, manager John Schofield opted to recall Stallard in place of Torpey. This allowed Forrester and Stallard to reunite their goal scoring partnership from last season. The goal came in the 53rd minute when Forrester passed the ball to Stallard, who scored for 3-1.

Overall, this was a much improved performance from Lincoln. If they can take confidence - and why should they not? - from this match and transpire it to their next two winnable games against Accrington Stanley and Dagenham & Redbridge then Lincoln should be close to top spot. Incidentally, there is such a word as "winnable", so no, we have not had a Colin Murphy moment! We will leave the Colin Murphy moments to Schofield, as promotion this season would be a fitting tribute to Murphy's achievement of twenty years ago!

Up the Imps!!

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