Referee Michael Ryan had doubts about the state of the pitch after arriving at the ground and staff had to use a heater to warm up a patch of ground near the Warwick Road End before he gave the game the go-ahead barely 40 minutes before kick-off. Earlier 40 volunteers had helped Ted Swainson clear the pitch of snow. The Cumbrians were behind inside six minutes. A curling cross from the right wing found Glennon rooted to his line and Chris Ward headed home into the corner of the net. As United struggled to build any rythmn on a surface that was comfortably playable, the visitors took charge. Their second goal arrived after 34 minutes. A curling cross cum shot by Scott Willis again deceived Glennon and found the far right corner of the goal. United suffered a further blow when Lee Maddison was forced to limp off with what looked like a thigh strain. He was replaced by Ryan Baldacchino. Roddy Collins was so incensed with the first half display that the United players sheepishly marched back out of the tunnel barely two minutes after trotting down it at the interval. They were followed by an angry manager who had them exercising and kicking balls around with the substitutes as the Imps drank tea in their own dressing room and basked in the comfort of a two-goal cushion. However, Collins's tactics failed to lift United sufficiently. It was true that they came out more fired up and Richie Foran in particular put himself about but Lincoln's highly-ranked defence held firm. The third goal put the result beyond doubt. Peter Gain's shot from outside the box crashed into the net off the underside of the cross-bar. Glennon's night was complete when he came out of his goal to clear a through ball and managed to miss the target almost completely. Scrambling back, he couldn't prevent Paul Smith following up to side foot the ball home. At this point there was a mass walk-out by less committed supporters - and there were still almost 20 minutes to play. Rather late in the game Carlisle at last began to string some passes together and Baldacchino fired a shot inches over the bar. McGill also showed some imagination and saw a shot deflected away for a corner. In the closing seconds there was at last some scant consolation when top scorer Craig Farrell notched his 12th of the season with an astute finish into the bottom right hand corner with his left foot, following a pass from Craig Russell. The strike was unlikely though to have changed the mood of a clearly upset Collins. Al's verdict: We can only hope this was a ghastly one-off. Certainly we haven't played as poorly this season and it's a bit hard to understand why. Was this really the same team who'd won their previous 3 games? We simply never gelled at all and Lincoln had a comfortable night, far more comfortable than they must have been expecting. It's hard on Glennon who clearly found his area freezing up as the night wore on and had trouble controlling a bouncing ball. Let's not forget he was Player of the Month in December and rightly so. Perhaps it would have been better with hindsight if the game had been called off and replayed in the balmy days of April, when Lincoln might be mired in mid-table mediocrity with nothing to play for. But it's always easy to be wise after the event. |
