A lad I knew from Hitchin had come up to York for the weekend with the expressed intention of going to the football, so we made an early start and having secured train tickets and got a decent breakfast inside us, we phoned Cuza to make sure that he wasn't going to be late (he arrived a minute before the train was due to leave for Huddersfield and nearly managed to make everyone miss the train) and arranged to meet him next to an off-license.

We got the 12.27 out of York heading down towards Doncaster, and the boring 20 minute journey was only livened up by an amusing phone call I had and the numerous comical jokes regarding Pratt's Burberry clothing [wasn't boring then was it? - ed]. We arrived in Donkeycaster at the right time and headed onto the train for Lincoln, and amazingly found a couple of tables next to each other on the single-coach train.

Fredfroni and his mate disappeared off somewhere, to leave the rest of us chatting to a York fan on the train and to continue the ridiculing of Pratt's poor dress sense. I attempted to sell his Burberry cap to everyone within ear-shot, but no-one was a taker for the cap. I'm not sure quite who was laughing with me and who was laughing at me, but it made the hour long trip go much faster. As we pulled into Lincoln some lass who was sitting near to us finally lost patience and asked us to stop taking the mickey out of Pratt, but not even she would take his cap - even after we offered her money to take it off us.

On arriving in Lincoln we made 2 discoveries. Fredfroni and his mate had left us on the train as there were nicer birds behind us, and that someone who was meant to be joining us at York hadn't turned up and we'd only just realised. Apparently Laurence has awarded me a record for being the most talkative person as well.

We headed across to Lincoln's ground, and managed to take several wrong turnings when trying to cross a bridge, and then a mother got really upset with us for no reason at all. We got some pictures around Sincil Bank (we decided against taking one of us laughing at the Ripon Arms) and headed up to the away end. It took us some 15 minutes to get into the ground - not because there were queues, but no-one could quite work out which turnstile they were meant to go through.

As for the match - I'll pass on commenting on that, other than to say City were sh*t and the referee a joke. Lincoln scored 3 goals, all of which were clearly crap and underserved. I don't remember any of the goals, but that's only because they were of such a poor quality I've wiped them from my memory. Despite Cuza's pleading to us to leave the ground early, we stayed till the bitter bitter end, and on leaving the ground found ourselves held up by the police as they decided they'd annoy us some more and escort us to the station to make sure we couldn't get on an earlier train.

That said, the escort did have it's humorous moments. Like some woman walking up to the front of the escort, then shouting, "you should have f***ing beaten Lincoln. I hate them, they are f***ing scum" - which unsurprisingly brought much mirth to the City fans. Another memorable moment as everyone trying to get a bloke with his motorbike arrested for driving it on the pavement.

Arriving back at the station we checked our plans and decided to go across to Newark Castle and then walk to Newark North Gate before getting the train back up to York, and we attempted to explain this to a few policemen who were interested in what we were planning to do. I don't know how many times we told different policemen our plans, but they still didn't understand us. Even as we got on the train they were still reluctant to let us go, and once the police had let us onto the train, the City fans decided they would tell us that the train wasn't going to Doncaster.

On the train journey to Newark Castle we met up with a City fan from somewhere near Wrexham who had not visited Red & Blue net for years, but had heard of Ukrainian Phil, coming up with the comment, "he's famous" [with a look of horror on his face]. Laurence advertised the site, and then we had a 15-20 minute debate about what he should call himself on the forum, which he ended by saying, "it's my name, I'll call myself what I like."

On arrival at Newark Castle we headed for what we thought was Newark North Gate station, but after getting vaguely lost we crossed a random bridge in the middle of nowhere and came out very close to the station. As we walked up to the station we went past a sign saying, "Lincoln street" and me and Cuza posed for a pic. A tw*t living at 30 Lincoln Street - that's 30 Lincoln Street - then told us to "f*** off" and after we'd explained we were just having a laugh [click here to see the offending photo of Richard and Cuza taking the mickey], he went inside and picked up a baseball bat before stepping outside after us and shouting, "I know how to use this." I was impressed by that, as I've had a baseball bat for 5 years and I still can't get a tune out of it. 

After getting on the train at Newark North Gate, we lost half the party as the disappeared off, and as the train finally pulled into York station, I got a picture of Cuza and Stewart wearing British Transport Police helmets.

All in all it was a good day out, even if York played Dolanesque football and didn't ever hint at getting back into the game. I'm still hopeful for a top 7 finish, and hopefully this was just a bad performance and everything can be put back to normal for Rochdale on Saturday.