‘History’ is what Chris Ashton said to me as he left the first Lincoln City win in the second tier for 65 years.
History indeed, and while we still wait for that first home win of the Championship era, our first-ever three points as a Second Division team have arrived against Bolton Wanderers, and in typical Lincoln City fashion. Frank Sinatra sang about doing things his way (in My Way, obviously) and that’s exactly what we’re doing: we’re doing things our way.
Strangely enough, we probably looked less likely to yield a victory than the Portsmouth fixture a week earlier. That might sound odd given the respective results, but football does that to you. Against Portsmouth there were periods where we played well, created opportunities and looked capable of taking something, only to come away empty-handed. At Bolton, particularly during the first half, there were moments when it felt as though we were simply hanging on.
Even before kick-off, I wasn’t exactly overflowing with confidence, and maybe that’s the pessimist in me poking his head out like a mole at night. When the team came through, I looked at it with (picks my wording carefully) surprise. It was probably the most unfamiliar-looking Lincoln City defence we’ve seen for some time, with Calum Elder, a recognised left-back, on the left side of the defence, Ryley Towler in the middle, and Dom Jefferies operating at right wing-back.
There was no Andrei Coubiș, no Josh Honohan, Sonny was injured, and Tendayi Darikwa was obviously unavailable as well. Tom Hamer was another absentee, meaning we went into a Championship away game without three recognised first-team defenders. Adam Reach and Deji Elerewe looked familiar in their roles, but it did feel a bit spit and sawdust.
Shows what we know, right? I think that says as much about us as supporters as it does about the team itself. We’re still slightly overawed by the Championship, and I include myself in that. Bolton have been busy recruiting, and you look at some of the names they’ve brought through the door, then instinctively compare them with ours.
They had Jayden Nelson coming off the bench, and he looked excellent when he did. Samuel Iling-Junior is a player with Juventus on his CV, Ryan Hardie is someone we’ve seen plenty of over the years, while Sam Dalby caused us more than a few problems last season. You look at those names and, perhaps subconsciously, start building the opposition into something bigger than they might actually be on the day. Then you look at our defence, arguably (on paper at least) weaker than the one that closed out last season, and the clouds of doom set in, like the inevitable rain clouds I always seem to find on a trip to Bolton.
Then you look back at our starting XI and there was an argument that the whole side which went and beat Bolton yesterday wasn’t as strong, certainly on paper, as the Lincoln teams which faced them last season. The midfield was familiar, and the attacking three of Ben House, Freddie Draper and Reeco Hackett were all established Lincoln City players. It looked, superficially at least, like a good League One forward line going into a difficult Championship away fixture.
The important thing is that football isn’t played on paper, and two of those attacking players in particular are proving week after week that perhaps we need to stop viewing them exclusively through the prism of what they were at League One level. Ben House has started the season superbly, while Freddie continues to make life extremely uncomfortable for defenders. Both have carried their qualities into this division, and both were important again yesterday.
There was another element to the afternoon which perhaps added to the slightly strange feel of the occasion. The Toughsheet Community Stadium felt rather tepid, and I’ve seen some criticism of the number of Lincoln supporters who travelled. Attendance shaming is often far too easy, particularly on August Bank Holiday weekend, when people are away, at festivals, on holiday, with family or at events such as the British Superbikes at Cadwell Park (which I can hear as I write this up).
There were plenty of people who regularly travel home and away who simply weren’t available yesterday. We didn’t take as many as we might have hoped and certainly, from memory, it didn’t feel like as many as travelled there at Christmas a couple of years ago. That said, there are obvious reasons for that, and I don’t think pointing fingers at supporters achieves very much.
Incidentally, that 3-0 defeat was being shown on the Bolton scoreboards before kick-off, perhaps as an attempt to stir the home crowd. I’d also seen plenty of talk beforehand about Bolton wanting a white wall and a barrage of noise capable of blowing Lincoln away. What we actually got was a tannoy turned up to a ridiculous volume before kick-off and an atmosphere which never really followed it.
Sometimes I like to listen to the radio build-up before a match, just to get a sense of the mood building. That was virtually impossible because the music drowned everything else out, including my smart (but not loud) glasses, and it felt more like an attempt to manufacture an atmosphere than allow one to develop naturally. In that respect, it reminded me a little of Everton away in the FA Cup in 2018/19. Once the game began, Bolton’s crowd wasn’t especially loud, and there were only occasional bursts which really lifted the volume.
The stadium itself is still impressive, and behind the scenes there were some good people. We’ve spoken before about clubs where the media operation feels like the gold standard, with Middlesbrough and Plymouth among those I’ve highlighted. Bolton was good, the people in the media area were nice, but overall, the ground didn’t really have that same feeling, and the overall matchday experience felt slightly rough around the edges.
Looking down from the media area as supporters came into the ground, it didn’t quite feel like a former Premier League club beginning to rediscover itself. It felt more like a club still growing back into the shell it built during very different times. Perhaps that’s understandable given everything Bolton have been through, because the footprint remains: the large stadium, the seats and all the infrastructure associated with the club they once were, but the actual club feels like a size six foot in a size ten Gazelle.
That isn’t intended as a cheap shot at Bolton. They’re a bigger club than us and one which will understandably feel Championship football should be sustainable. They’ve recruited ambitiously as well, which made it surprising that, after taking four points from their opening two league games, there wasn’t more of a sense of optimism or occasion around the ground.
Maybe the weather didn’t help either. August Bank Holiday fixtures can have a party atmosphere about them, with the season still fresh and optimism usually intact. Yesterday never quite had that, and it added to the slightly flat feeling around the whole occasion before the football took over.
Once the game started, the first half went almost exactly as I’d feared. There is a perception that Bolton absolutely battered us before the break and, sitting in the stadium, I felt it too. They had ten attempts to our one, three on target to our none, while we had only 38% possession.
It felt uncomfortable, but looking at the numbers afterwards changes the picture slightly. Bolton’s overall xG figure was only 1.18 across the match, so for all the possession they enjoyed and all the balls they sent into our penalty area, they weren’t creating clear opportunity after clear opportunity. There was a lot of pressure, but not necessarily a huge amount of genuine danger.
They put 20 crosses into our box during the first half, eight of which were accurate. That sounds alarming until you consider what actually happened once those balls arrived, because for the most part we defended them. That’s our plan, isn’t it? Let them have the ball in wide areas because, honestly, how many goals are scored when a cross is delivered into a packed box? I heard they ‘kept getting down our sides’ as if that were a problem, but I think it was the plan.
Watching an opposition side repeatedly work the ball wide and deliver into your penalty area feels dangerous, particularly away from home, but is it really? There’s a sense of jeopardy, like standing on a glass floor fifty stories up. The fear is always there, but effectively, there is a pretty serious barrier between you and a fall. Lincoln City are good at defending the penalty area, and if the plan was to allow Bolton possession in wider areas, protect the central spaces and back ourselves to deal with crosses, then the first half wasn’t necessarily the desperate rearguard action it felt like at the time.
Sam Dalby hitting the outside of the post was undoubtedly a good opportunity, the crack in the glass floor, so to speak. Samuel Iling-Junior did really well in the build-up, and Dalby’s effort accounted for a sizeable chunk of Bolton’s xG on its own. Outside moments such as that, though, they didn’t carve us apart at will, even if the perception was different. There is a difference between having territorial dominance and consistently creating good chances, and Bolton had lots of the former without enough of the latter. Ironically, Middlesbrough had even more possession against us during the first half on the opening weekend, yet the general consensus was that we’d played reasonably well there.
The difference was that at Bolton we offered almost nothing going the other way in the first period, and that was the worrying aspect of the first 45. Ben House battled superbly without having much to feed on, although his booking for simulation was correct. There’s no point dancing around that one, because he went down looking for something that wasn’t there and was rightly cautioned.
Aside from that, though, we barely threatened. One attempt and none on target gives you nothing to cling to as a supporter, and when the other team continually has the ball, even if they’re not fashioning golden chances, the lack of any attacking response makes everything feel more oppressive. I came away at half-time thinking we’d been battered and that eventually something would give, but looking back at the numbers, I’m not sure that’s actually what happened. What is ‘being battered’ in reality? The opposition having more of the ball? If so, we were battered in getting 103 points last season. Is it wave after wave of attacks and shots? Because that didn’t happen. Or is it when you perceive a side to be having chances when you’re not?
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