Congratulations to John Freeman from Welton who has won the Junior Reporter Competition.
In conjunction with The Football League's Fans of the Future Campaign, suported by E.On, we ran a competition to find some budding junior reporters and John will now be put forward to represent Lincoln City in the national competition which could see the 14 year old win a VIP day out at Wembley!
John will be at Saturday's game to enjoy his prize for winning the Lincoln City competition and will get a behind the scenes look at the Club on a match day where he will meet Peter Jackson before watching the game from the press box.
Below is his winning report from the game against Bury on March 14th.
Lincoln were denied a victory late on by Bury striker Andy Bishop at Sincil Bank, after taking the lead through Ben Wright, but the major talking point of the game will be the sending off of Lincoln's on-loan striker Anthony Elding, and the events that followed.
Peter Jackson named an unchanged starting eleven for the match against promotion-chasing Bury, who started the match fourth in the table.
In the first few moments of the game, the two teams found it hard to adapt to blustery conditions and there were few chances. Only a header from Shakers attacker Andy Morrell troubled any of the goals, as he took a knock to the head, the ball sailing wide. Lincoln then began to put their mark on the game, but mostly ended up with half chances. Their best chance came in the twentieth minute when Aaron Brown's free kick was deflected into the air by a defender. Three City players went in unchallenged pursuit, and it was Ben Wright who stretched full length to get the final touch, but could only direct it wide from close range. At the other end, the visitors got their first shot on target when midfielder Michael Jones had his effort palmed away well by the Imps 'keeper Rob Burch.
However, it would be Lincoln who got the first breakthrough of the game with Ben Wright putting the ball away on the half-hour after Michael O'Connor's ball into the box found Aaron Brown at the back post. Brown then knocked the ball across goal to Wright, who had all the time and space to tap the ball home while the Bury defenders appealed for offside.
After the restart, Lincoln looked positive and Danny N'Guessan came close to the second as his header was caught under the crossbar by the visitors number one, Wayne Brown. The Shakers had good chances too, as their top scorer Bishop forced a good save from Burch and then went close when he was given the ball by Frank Sinclair's loose pass. After that, near to the end of the first half, the game turned nasty as many tempers rose.
The trouble began when Anthony Elding was given a yellow card when he was adjudged to have kicked Efe Sodje. Elding was then involved in another incident with Sodje's defensive partner, Ryan Cresswell. While the referee, Chris Sarginson, had his back to the pair, who were on the ground, Cresswell held back Elding, provoking a reaction from the former Stockport target man. Players from both sides then started to square up to each other as the half descended into conflict. The outcome of the whole spectacle was that Elding was dismissed, much to the dismay of those expecting the decision to turn the other way.
More drama was to follow as Elding took his long walk past the Bury bench, one of the opposing side's coaching staff appeared to get involved, causing both benches to start the action all over again. Only after the mess was sorted out did Sarginson turn to Ryan Cresswell, but the defender only got a caution, triggering loud displeasure from the home crowd.
After that everybody was relieved to get to the half-time break, not least the referee, who had begun to lose control of over the game. During the interval, the half was almost perfectly summed up by a bout of Lincoln v Bury sumo wrestling, which was among the half time events.
So with the chance to calm down, the two teams came out for the second half. Bury were much the better side after the break and had the lion's share of the chances, with Lincoln predictably lacking an attacking threat and Ben Wright unable to find support up front on his own. Echoes of the first half's legacy lingered, as Bury's Bennett got booked for pulling down Brown and Scott Kerr got the same punishment for his late tackle on Jones.
Lincoln then had a brilliant and rare opportunity to put themselves further ahead, on the hour, when N'Guessan and a Cresswell slip put Wright through. The Imps striker had a long clear run to goal and plenty of time to gather himself, but it may have been too much time, as he dragged the shot wide.
Meanwhile, Bury did their best to take advantage of Wright's error, sending an onslaught of crosses into the Lincoln's penalty area, many of which were kept out by the defensive duo of Sinclair and Kovacs. Bury looked to push for an equalizer as they brought on fresh attacking energy, with Racci and Hurst coming on for Haslam and Morrell respectively; but it was the persistent threat of Bishop who got it for them eight minutes from time. The goal came when Bennett put the ball high over a stationary Lincoln defense for Bishop to flick over the oncoming Burch for his fifteenth goal of the season.
Jackson tried to change the game soon after, bringing on Patulea for Wright, but he didn't get much of the ball as the visitors looked for all three points. Their best chance came from a twenty-five yard free kick, given away by O'Connor, but it was well pushed away by the diving Burch.
Despite another good long range effort from Michael Jones, the scores remained unchanged at ninety minutes, with the two sides having to make do with a point in a game that both had good chances to win. However, the fans would go home with much more than that to talk about after the controversy they had witnessed in this eventful game.
