City slipped to their heaviest defeat of the season on Tuesday evening with Port Vale emerging 4-0 victors at a bitterly cold Vale Park.

To say the start to the game, the majority of which being played in swirling wind and sporadic snow showers, was shocking is an understatement as within the opening quarter of an hour City were three down - and it could have been worse!

The game was just 22 seconds old when a hopeful ball forward from the Vale midfield saw assistant manager Ian Pearce see his attempted back pass to Rob Burch leave the City 'keeper wrong-footed and he had no chance as the ball trickled over the line.

A couple of minutes later things got even worse as another ball into the area wasn't cleared by the City defence and there loitering to latch on to things on the left hand side of the area was Rob Taylor who duly blasted past Burch to double his side's advantage.

In the fifth minute referee Phil Gibbs spotted a handball and awarded the home side a penalty but Burch prevented a third Vale goal by brilliantly keeping our Marc Richards' penalty low to his left.

The home side extended their lead in the 15th minute when a counter-attack, which came after City had a decent shout for a penalty of their own after the ball struck a home defender on the arm, saw Lewis Haldane play in Craig Davies who rammed home number three.

Alhough City pushing to get back into the match with Chris Herd having an effort hooked off the line, the damage was already done and it was left to centre-back John McCombe, brother of ex-Imp Jamie, to finish things off when he netted from close range after the impressive Burch had kept out a Richards header.

MATCH FACTS

LINCOLN CITY
1 Rob BURCH
25 Cian HUGHTON
5 Moses SWAIBU
13 Ian PEARCE
38 Joe ANDERSON
39 Matthew SAUNDERS
11 Scott KERR
34 Chris HERD
35 Brian GILMOUR
16 Steven LENNON
15 Drewe BROUGHTON

subs
14 Lenell JOHN-LEWIS (for BROUGHTON 36)
23 Clark KELTIE (for HERD 73)
19 Shane CLARKE (for KERR 81)
2 Paul GREEN
6 Danny HONE
7 Stefan OAKES
20 Paul MUSSELWHITE

BOOKINGS: GILMOUR (15), HERD (36), PEARCE (65)

PORT VALE
1 Joe ANYON
3 Robert TAYLOR
5 John McCOMBE
9 Mark RICHARDS
10 Tommy FRASER
11 Adam YATES
14 Louis DODDS
15 Lee COLLINS
16 Gareth OWEN
25 Craig DAVIES
32 Lewis HALDANE

subs
17 Sean RIGG (for HALDANE 81)
29 Sam MORSY (for FRASER 84)
19 Simon RICHMAN (for TAYLOR 86)
6 Luke PROSSER
33 Anthony MALBON
34 Matthew BELL
12 Chris MARTIN

GOALS: PEARCE (1 og), TAYLOR (3), DAVIES (15), McCOMBE (69)

BOOKING: FRASER (41)

REFEREE: Phil Gibbs
ASSISTANTS: Nicholas Greenhalgh & Marc Perry
FOURTH OFFICIAL: Jason Tyas

ATTENDANCE: 3,231 (101 City supporters)