The first 40 minutes were fairly uneventful with both sides only briefly showing glimpses of quality and this match had 0-0 all over it. The best chance had fallen to City with Yalcin and Nogan combining well to setup the young striker but alas his shot went narrowly wide. That looked about the highlight of the first half until the referee decided to make a name for himself.

A long hopefull ball was sailing wide with Edmondson having it well covered when an opposition player threw himself at the City captain with the ball well out of reach. Inexplicably, the ref saw that as a foul by Edmo and gave a penalty. It was converted and that was 0-1 at half-time. It would be too easy to call the ref a cheat but I am sure he was only one in Bootham Crescent who thought it was a penalty so probably a moron is a better description. Half-time and Bootham Crescent faithful let the ref, Mr Robinson, know exactly what they thought of him.

Second half and City looked like they just might get back into the match but were held back by the lack of understanding between Nogan and Yalcin. They were regularly isolated and too far apart that it was so easy for the Lincoln players, they had time to wave to their supporters. However what was making our croud angry was the policy of lobbing high balls up to the strikers when they are marked by a guy who must be at least 9" taller than the two. City continued this policy throughout the match and Stancliffe just stood there and said nothing. What even angered me about this man was his total lack of interest in retrieving the ball of Sean Davies in injury time. He just arrogantly ignored the ball and some guy from Showsec returned it. With leadership skills like that, Conference football here we come. Absolutely disgraceful.

Lincoln's goals midway through the second half became a haze as their strikers ripped through the York defence 3 times in a devastating 17 minute spell.

City response to going three down was straight out of Dolan book of logic as we replaced a striker with a defensive midfield player. Not content with that, we then replaced an attacking midfielder for one who can only pass sideways and then a wing back for the fans hero Jonny Parkin. Lincoln's response to this masterstroke of ingenuity was to score another and could have had two more but for poor finishing.

The last 10 minutes of normal time were all City and we really took the Lincoln defence to the cleaners culminating in a magnificent finish from Lee Bullock. He is absolutely lethal from 18 inches.

So who can take credit out of this game? Young Sean Davies can as he was still putting in the effort in the 93rd minute. He looked a touch nervous early on but all the 2nd half goals came through the inside left channel where Brass, Edmo and Hope should have been covering. Justin Walker and Lee Nogan did OK, Parky came on and caused a few problems but that was it. Edmo had an absolute nightmare, Brass brought the ball out of defence like a headless chicken, Hope was hopeless in the centre, Bullock was anonymous and Dunning's effort had no end product. The substitutions defied commonsense and someone should check Stancliffe for signs of advanced rigamortis.

The question is where do we go from here? Well it has to be a debut for Graeme Law at rightback on Saturday at Boston. Also bring in Matthew Coad. It's clear that some people need a kick up the arse and a spell of reserve team football might do the trick.

Verdict. Pathetic.

Report by Tim Wills

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