To curse or not to curse, that is the question.
Twas a grim and autumnal day, that is for sure. England mustered well in their first innings with Jos whacking the Indian bowlers to all parts. That lifted my spirits for a battle against a team who seem to have hexed us in the past.
I sadly remember the dour draw at the Bank last season against a Kewel side, who obviously had done their homework. That was then turned into a 3-0 home win for Crawley in the return fixture.
Then at the start of the week, there was this unfortunate headline;
"There isn't a team in this division that is capable of physically dominating us."
We have been physically dominated to two defeats now. Always dangerous tempting fate.
On to today's game. Crawley had a high defensive line and harried, bustled and pressed hard. They upset our team to the point they did a Cowleys on us. Our play was poor and John Akinde looked slower than the milk float that Father Dougall drove when he replaced Pat Mustard in Father Ted.
I was longing for half time, as was mini Jeff. I even had to reach to listen to the TMS commentary as the play was reminiscent of two mid table Sunday league teams, having over exerted their drinking arms the previous evening.
The own goal was unfortunate, but not unexpected for Crawley to be ahead at half time.
After an acceptable hot chocolate at half time, I saw the sending off incident. It did look like a sending off and it took that for Lincoln to finally realise that they were in a two horse race. That was disappointing. Crawley defended well and picked off our attempts well. The only bright spot for me was Rhead coming on, who looked to cause the Crawley defence problems immediately. He did just that.
A poor game. A poor performance and one that will go down as a missed opportunity. You can't win every game and it would appear the humorous hoodoo or curse of Manager of The Month, strikes again.
A defeat is a good thing. It adds perspective and allows the players and staff a chance to reflect, learn and realise what you need to do in order to improve and retain that consistency.
A season is a marathon and not a sprint. It means nothing where you are in September, but everything in that final table on the first Saturday in May.
