Reading the Echo on Friday morning those of us at Mad Towers who had feared the worst thought perhaps we might have been over pessimistic in our assessment of City’s chances against Gillingham. The fans panel seemed to be more or less unanimous in their belief that the Imps would gain at least a point to ease the mounting pressure on our beleaguered team. How we wish the panel had been right and we wrong as City slumped to yet another humiliation and yet another new low. Our goals against column looks like the aftermath of the Somme and it takes a real effort to turn up at Sincil Bank to watch each new debacle with little thought of a draw let alone an elusive win and meanwhile all that is keeping our leaky ship afloat is the continued failure of our rivals, Barnet excepted who are doing this season what they did last. They have been derailed though by the loss of their manager, Martin Allen taking up the reins at Notts County . Despite that rare bit of good news, if we can be so heartless as to describe it thus, at this rate if the ceiling doesn’t fall in this season it will next as, despite the clubs up beat salesmanship, season ticket sales for next term surely will be nothing to write home about. The constant chopping and changing of managers, not that the latest change can be laid at the clubs door and more particularly the huge turnover in player personnel takes its toll on the budget.
Even that chirpy chappy Steve Tilson is now showing signs of losing his cool if the latest interview on BBC Lincolnshire is anything to go by and, rather as the government is finding out it’s only the other guy’s fault for so long and reasons start to look like excuses after a while. Were the players who have gone or lost their places that bad? Are their replacements better? Fans will have digested the gory details of the latest defeat either by seeing it for themselves or in the press or on the net so we will spare you any further distress.
Ashley Grimes, it has now been announced, will miss the next two games through suspension and of course we will miss him but, valuable though his contribution has been and we would not wish to belittle his very substantial contribution to the cause this season the considerable loss of Delroy Facey becomes more and more apparent as the season progresses, City’s form has simply been in meltdown since his injury.
We now look forward, if that is the expression, to away games against Crewe and Bury. Crewe lost at Barnet so will be in the mood for retribution (oh good) whilst Bury won at Northampton which at least kept the Cobblers below us but of course they will not want to do us any further favours at Gigg Lane. Readers of a nervous disposition will not wish to relive the game at Sincil Bank when Bury gave us the complete run around to win five nil in the first of a series of catastrophic performances fans have had the misfortune to witness. Perhaps it is really is darkest before dawn. It’s certainly inky at the moment. Hopefully the manager knows the way out of this very dark place we have got ourselves into.