travelled all the way from Warminster to nearly have the game called off with 20mm of snow lying on the Yarborough Leisure Centre’s pitch, Lincoln’s usual home ground. Quick thinking by the Lincoln executive switched the game to a snow clear North Kesteven Sports Centre pitch at North Hykeham and the game got under way at the same start time of 1.30pm. Apologies to any spectators who turned up to Yarborough to find no match there.
It was the visitors who started the better team and looked much more hungry to win the game. They made the Imps team look second best throughout the first 20 minutes. Admittedly, Lincoln were without Chris Topham (ill) and our stalwart defender Steve Ward (injured), but that did not contribute to the poor ball skills and rather pathetic passing by the home team. Tim Sutton shot to the left of the goal in the first few minutes, when it would have been easier to score, and Tony Perrin played two reverse stick passes expecting Sutton to be there when both were poor and went to the opposition. Sutton again caused problems going forward, but without effect and it was no surprise when West Wilts went 0 – 1 ahead after 15 minutes and the Imps looked a little under pressure. Despite Lincoln nearly scoring, when a well worked penalty corner to Billy Marwaha saw the Lincoln skipper hit the left hand upright with the keeper beaten, it seemed it was not going to be Lincoln’s day and the side went in to halftime with just the one goal deficit, despite the visitors having had quite a few penalty corners themselves. Lincoln were their own worst enemies in not passing the ball around with their usual fluency, and Marwaha, Paul Brazinskas and Tony Wing all tried to beat players before passing the ball, which was the wrong answer. At times Steve Seymour and David Yorkshire played well down Lincoln’s left and put some good crosses into the visitor’s goal area.

After halftime the visitors soon went 0 – 2 up, once again showing the normally tight and secure defence of Lincoln to be a little suspect despite good work at times by Andy Wright, Peter Rushmere and Kevin White getting the ball away before they scored a third. It was time for the Imps to get their game together and produce the goods or they would be going out at the quarter final stage. As the West Wilts team tired Lincoln upped their game and many attacks against the visitor’s goal ended in penalty corners against West Wilts, as they fouled under pressure from Lincoln starting to fire on all cylinders. Penalty corners followed for Lincoln and Sutton missed a slipped ball and hit an “airshot” when having a great chance to strike gold for the home team. At last the Imps were starting to show their true form and their first goal came from a well worked set piece penalty corner, with Wright firing home a straight shot inside the left post.

Lincoln piled on the pressure and their second came again from a penalty corner set piece, with a one-two between Wright and Marwaha and ending in Wright’s second. West Wilts had the chance to score a possible winner in the last five minutes, but Pete Richards in the Lincoln goal once again put off the visitor’s best player, who decided to pass rather than score when on a one–to-one with the Lincoln keeper. Lincoln continued to attack and were rewarded with a penalty corner chance after the visitors gave away a bad stick tackle. Once again, with yet a third assist by Perrin stick-stopping for Wright to fire home the winner, he completed his hat-trick through the goalkeeper’s legs and hitting the backboard high up. There was no real chance for West Wilts to get back into the game and, once again, Sutton’s personal performance, amongst all the rest of the team’s, saw Lincoln secure the win and a place in the semi finals on the 17th March.

This is a fantastic achievement by the Lincoln “Old Boys” and in the end was quite justifiable. Well done “lads”! Let us hope for another home game in the semi finals.