The one sided derby with Lincoln City

The most damning jibe between modern football fans comes when one declares that having assessed the situation that passed between two once competing clubs that the former now no longer considers the latter a rival.

This happened first at Old Trafford who sneered across to Moss Side at City saying that United’s main rivals were now the likes of Real Madrid and AC Milan and not the Blue half of the City at all. This week might have given cause for redress on that but the insult rankled with those at Maine Road.

Indeed the same was said in the direction of Elland Road a few years later. Manchester United were concerned with putting one over Barca and not with Leeds United the supporters of whom took some delight in mocking this attitude in the recent FA Cup win. Goes the song: “1-0, but it’s only Leeds.”

Sympathy for Leeds in this situation dries up when one recalls how the Whites apply the same thinking to Bradford City – and Huddersfield Town, who join the Bantams in considering Leeds and not each other their closet rivals – with one interesting debate on the subject on a Leeds website featuring our much missed writer Roland Harris in which our boy tried to explain that the reason why City disliked Leeds more than Leeds disliked City was down to the fact the Leeds were simply more obnoxious. Paraphrasing here but Roland’s argument went along the lines that if you go around cutting people up on the motorway then the offended parties will feel more negative to you than you do to them.

Nevertheless the rivalry turn off is the brickbat of the modern game and is liberally thrown around as clubs look to establish a local dominance in what is increasingly a centralised game.

All this said, I don’t consider Lincoln City to be a rival.

It is not because we have outgrown them or gone past them (only to return) or any of those freely and liberally thrown around comments but rather because never in my life have I considered the two clubs to be rivals in any way and considering our shared tragedy in the fire of 1985 I had thought we were – well – friends.

theimp.tk‘s Nathan Jackson would seem to think differently saying to highlight a common theme on his site of antagonism between the Imps and the Bantams

As much as I’d love to beat Bradford at Sincil Bank, I can’t really picture a maximum haul against a side who are fairly decent travellers.

Jackson’s optimism about City’s form is welcome but his distaste is simply curious and goes beyond my comprehension. Answers on a postcard please, for I am none the wiser.

Wisdom, or the lack of it, seemed to be in short supply at Sincil Bank earlier in the season when Peter Jackson was fired seemingly for the crime of not having The Imps competing for the play-offs. The Sincil Bank board had a plan: they were going to hold interviews and ask anyone who came if they had a plan and someone did in the form of one time best pal of Lee Power Chris Sutton who took the management position and within a couple of months was declaring the Lincoln were in a relegation fight.

The stunning thing about this turn around from promotion contenders to best best in a relegation dog fight was the way the degradation has been readily accepted. Sutton’s press is good on the whole – the popular media love a face they recognise from nights at Wembley watching England – but as his team struggle one has ton wonder how a spotlight has not been put on those who made and influenced the decision to remove Jackson from the big seat and replace him with such massive uncertainty which would seem to have the club sailing much closer to the relegation winds than one would have thought possible at the start of the season.

Or, as one Lincoln fan put it recently:

Who’s bright idea was this? And where is that person now to explain just what Jackson was doing wrong that Sutton is doing right?

Indeed.

Naturally the person – and I have no idea who he is – probably heard and used the word “gamble” which is cropping up more often at City than it should do for a club that last gambled on six week of spending in the Premiership and lost the ground as a result. When Jackson was fired there was calls for the same to happen to his former City team mate and current Bantams boss Stuart McCall and naturally the fear for those who nail colours to a mast against such a move is that the Bantams would follow Lincoln’s slump. None of which is to say that Sutton is or will do a poor job, just that those people who suggested that a new man couldn’t do any worse than Jackson seem to have been proved wrong.

As City enter the second half of the season which – should Stuart McCall’s predictions of it all resting on the next four weeks be accurate and should the next four games go the same way as the last four – looks increasingly like resulting in a lack of result then one suspects that the Bantams and the manager might be set for a summer parting of the ways which were it not for the squabbling and back-biting from the terraces could have been dignified. No such luck.

A summer revolution leaving the likes of Coventry City target James Hanson, Scott Neilson and Steve Williams in place presents an attractive proposition for a new gaffer (if we must, I’d rather not but that is another story) but one wonders what the reaction would be if a similar downturn that followed Jackson’s exit came with a new City manager. If within a few months of the mob getting what they want the new manager is – like Sutton – talking about winning a relegation fight.

Do not worry, dear reader, for I’m sure at that point public apologies and remortage funded player investment will follow from people who promise that improvement will follow with come forthwith.

On the pitch City spent so much time off that frankly at BfB we forgot who the players were in some cases and why they might not be playing in others. Who is suspended, who is injured, who has roast beef, who has none. We fail to recall these things with a reliable level of accuracy.

City should start with Matt Glennon in goal following his début at Bury and Glennon will have the reformed back four of Simon Ramsden, Zesh Rehman, Steve Williams and Luke O’Brien ahead of him following Ramsden’s midfield sojourn at Bury. Ramsden’s return is brought about by the return from injury of Lee Bullock to start another round of being book for having two legs while Michael Flynn partners him in player of the season form. Stuart McCall’s usual 433 vs 442 question arises and in a three one could expect Chris Brandon to play in a forward laying position while in a four Brandon may be left and Omar Daley make a start on the right.

James Hanson – who has not a yellow card to his name this season – may recover from injury to return up front as Gareth Evans struggle for form with one or the other set to partner Michael Boulding.