City fall flat as County easily claim 3 points
By Nathan Jackson
February 3 2007
A desperately disappointing day for City saw Jamie Forrester send off, and City ship 3 goals to local rivals Notts County. City were behind as early as the 2nd minute and never recovered. It means that Imps are now looking another playoff campaign straight on in the face....oh dear.
City kicked off the game and almost scored within 20 seconds as Forrester just failed to connect with Hughes’ centre. The ball went down the other end and Mayo conceded the game’s first corner. The ball was played in and found it’s way to Jay Smith, he controlled the ball before sending a deflected shot past a helpless Marriott into the net.
County continued to control the opening with Smith wasting a good opportunity from close range. Jason Lee then went in with elbows swinging as Nat Brown headed clear. City took the ball up the other end and won a free kick. Good work between Forrester and Frecklington saw the latter send a shot into the side netting.
After easily claiming a corner, Marriott distributed the ball to Jeff Hughes, the
Stallard’s luck didn’t improve as he made it a trio of near misses when a clever 1-2 with Forrester released him. He watched as his shot trickled wide of the target. Jeff Hughes then headed against the post and the ball rebounded to Stallard who could only see the ball claimed by Pilkington at his feet.
Rennie’s unusual approach to refereeing the game (in other words, without a clue) continued as Pipe jumped into Stallard’s back knees first, only for Rennie to award County a free kick. Rennie was at it again as he awarded Notts County on a free kick and indicated that Forrester had pulled the shirt of McCann, to everyone’s amazement he then calls over Forrester and shows a straight red card. It takes a few minutes for the protests to die down.
Stallard again came close to equalising when his shot was deflected for a corner. From this Notts County broke forward, Nat Brown made an excellent tackle before Jason Lee comes in and elbows him in the face, immediately bloodying the defender and sending him to the floor. Rennie however decides that it’s not worth a free kick, Lee sends a shot against the bar before heading into an open goal after Marriott was flattened by the first effort. Only then does Mr Rennie decide to raise his arm to bring the physio on! How very noble of you Mr Rennie!!!
City made a half time substitution as N’Guessan came on for Mayo as City tried to salvage something from the game. It was almost 3-0 within a minute as Parkinson’s shot was just tipped wide by Marriott. City went down the other end and won a free kick, it ended however with Rennie getting his glittered up whistle out of his pocket and blowing for N’Guessan fouling the goalkeeper. I forgot that strikers aren’t allowed to try and win headers now, obviously another exclusion from the rule book the FA gave to Rennie.
Jeff Hughes burst down the left before coming inside and trying his luck, however it went wide. From the goalkick, Lawrie Dudfield scored his second goal in less than 12 months against the Imps as he poked home following defensive indecision. This was enough for some of the travelling section as most made for the exits, that despite there still be around half an hour left.
Freckington was replaced by Eaden with 18 minutes left. A few minutes later and Mark Stallard received a standing ovation from the
A long throw found it’s way to Weir-Daley with about two minutes left and he turned and shot, the ball went past Pilkington for a goal that would have been pretty sweet for the striker who is on loan from
Nat Brown then sent a cross into the box and Edwards handled, Rennie pointed to the spot. It was suddenly becoming interesting and maybe this game wasn’t dead yet. Kerr took the spot kick but it was parried by Pilkington, who then showed his Manchester United academy training by recovering to save Weir-Daley’s rebound.
City found out that other results forced us down to 5th, and the pack are starting to catch up.