Advantage Lincoln

By Nathan Jackson
May 15 2005

City have a very narrow 1-0 lead to take to Moss Rose after a Gareth McAuley header secured the win for City. A poor game with very poor quality chances thankfully went the way of the Imps who made it nearly 10 hours (football time) of home games without conceeding a goal.

City got the game underway shooting towards the half filled Stacey West stand and had a corner within 40 seconds. However, Sandwith's delivery was headed by McCombe straight into the arms of Alan Fettis. Futcher committed a foul on Swailes in the next attack but then Futcher would be involved again at the over end. The ball was sent into the box and Futcher in an attempt to clear it, sliced the ball towards goal and only a very quick reaction save from Marriott prevented a goal. Futcher cleared the resulting corner despite the best efforts of Jon Parkin.

Despite this rather unusual 5 minutes, the next 5 were pretty lifeless with no chances. City soon took the lead. A foul on the right saw Sandwith put the ball into the box where an unmarked Gareth McAuley cooly headed into the bottom right hand corner of the goal but Fettis is a bit guilty of being a bit lazy as he could have easily saved it if he had just raised his arm by 6 inches. Oh well, 1-0 to City with 11 minutes gone.

Macclesfield could have equalised on the 19th minute when Futcher conceeded a corner which McCombe struggled to keep out of the goal from 2 yards out but it was eventually cleared. Asamoah used his speed to get past Mark Bailey but he cross was lofted over the goal by Yeo. Asamoah was at it again, this time bursting into the box but going past the 2nd defender was deemed to be a foul by the ref.

Despite having most of the chances, City were being very lucky, leaving gaps at the back which a team with a decent attacking presence could exploit but unfortunatly for Macclesfield they only have Jon "It's not too obvious I used to be a defender" Parkin and Matthew "Am I actually here?" Tipton. The latter of the two did actually do something when he sent a shot against the bar and it rebounded to a Macclesfield midfielder who could only scramble it wide when being pressured by Futcher and McCombe.

Macclesfield started off the 2nd half but the game quickly returned to the same quality of play that the game had seen the majority of time, long balls from defence to defence and to be honest, it was hardly a suprise that the game ended with only a single goal due to the lack of midfield work in the match.

City created the first chance of the half when Yeo smashed a shot towards goal but Morley's face got in the way and the Macclesfield defender was down for a few minutes recieving treatment. Butcher's long range shot was deflected straight into the arms of Fettis.

Again the play was slow with the game lacking any real quality with only half chances for either side. The only real decent chance of the half came just before full time but McIntyre pulled his close range shot wide.