MATCH 16 : City thump the Stags

One of our most dominant performances of the last 5 years was against Mansfield Town in the 2003/4 season. It was 5th vs 3rd as the Stags visited Sincil Bank and both sides would end up in the Playoffs but neither would end up promoted and Mansfield have never record.

Lincoln City and Mansfield Town have played out some classics in recent seasons, they have already featured in this Top 20 and will feature again later on in the process. The second game against Mansfield to be included in the process came on a March afternoon in 2004. Both sides were in the hunt for automatic promotion and 5th vs 3rd was easily the most mouthwatering game of the weekend.

A crowd of just over 6,000 saw what was scheduled to be the final local derby of the season at Sincil Bank and the atmosphere was electric. City enjoyed the early exchanges and forced a corner in the 6th minute. Green headed the set piece goalwards but it was cleared off the line by Artell. City nearly opened the scoring after 10 minutes as Gary Fletcher (as he was known then) went on a run down the left-hand side, he beat the defender and ran into the area. Pilkington ran out and narrowed the angle but could only watch as Fletcher chipped the ball onto the top of the bar.

The first of Mansfield's mere handful of chances came on 15 minutes when Marriott came out to clear the ball but kicked it straight to a Christie. The striker somehow managed to miss the open goal that came from this situation. Mansfield finally began to get into the game but poor efforts from Lawrence, Artell and Christie all wasting good oppurtunities.

Pilkington is certainly a goalkeeper capable of some proper clangers at times and that certainly applied when he picked up a backpass about 10 yards out. City couldn't capitalise and Peter Gain hit his shot straight at the wall.

Liam Lawrence has always been a player who's legs turn into jelly whenever he enters the box. He had done it earlier in the season when City won 2-1 at Field Mill and he did it again, getting up himself and slotting away the spot kick to give Mansfield a rather undeserved lead.

In the 2nd half, Mansfield seemed perfectly happy to sit back and take the Imps pressure. Marcus Richardson earned Lincoln a free-kick in the 52nd minute when Rhys Day fouled him. It didn't come to anything but it wasn't long before Lincoln won another set-piece. After the ball bobbled around the area for a while, it found it's way to Gary Fletcher and he popped in his 13th of the season as he smashed the ball in the net to make it 1-1.

It was almost 2-1 less than a minute later as McCombe's header was caught by Pilkington. Lincoln continued to dominated but failed to score again until the 67th minute. A Pilkington free kick went straight to Fletcher who ran past a few defenders before hitting the ball into the net from 25 yards to send most of Sincil Bank wild.

Just over a minute later, a long ball from Morgan fell to Green who ran into the area and lobbed Pilkington and with 20 minutes of the game left, the Mansfield end quickly emptied. It was starting to turn into the result that City were deserved and Yeo rounded off the scoring a minute from time with a chip from the edge of the area with the outside of his boot to make it 4-1.