There are always two sides to a game of football. And in the Lincolnshire County Cup semi-finals, one team must win and the other lose.
Lincoln United Women’s assistant manager Katie Davison was pleased to be on the winning side of Lincolnshire on Sunday.
She said: “I’m buzzing with the result. We are into the final of the County Cup, beating our closest and most challenging rivals.“
“Today was a whole squad effort. We had to make changes early on. All 16 players fully participated today and had an impact and an effect on the performance of the squad,” she added.
The match was a re-run of the County Cup final last year.
Davison said: “They came for a bit of revenge, and it is quite sweet that they did not get it.”
It’s a test that the Whites passed, when looking ahead to next season, if they get promoted in the league.
On this Davison said: “We prepared really well all season for a game like today. It’s really nice and pleasing to see that the girls can step up and play at this intensity and this level.”
“We made it difficult for them and didn’t allow them to play any form of football. We didn’t play well either, but we came out winning in a scrappy game and booked our place in the final,” she added.
United can now look ahead to the final, where they will play Stamford, looking to defend their County Cup crown.
Davison said: “They are a bit of an unknown quantity, although I did go and watch them in their semi-final, so we have made our notes, so do we know a bit about them already. But it’s a final and you never know what can happen in a final.”
“The treble is the target, and I said to the girls today ‘If we win today, we go on and win the treble’. Today was the big game and we got the win,” she added.
While one team celebrates, the other crashes out. This was the case for Lee Mitchell’s Lincoln City, who bowed out of the competition at the semi-final stage.
City’s head coach was disappointed with his side’s performance.
He said: “[I’m] disappointed from our performance, we weren’t at the races. You can’t turn up for 65 minutes and expect to get anything from the game. Collectively we just weren’t at the races. The first half was the worst I had seen us for a long time.”
The first half display saw one where United asserted their dominance on the tie and raced into a 2-0 lead. Mitchell saw the deficit in performance between the two sides.
He said: “We didn’t deserve the win, and the right team won in the end.”
“I think they were up for it more than us from the start. You could see they were tired at the end, whereas we weren’t out of third or fourth gear until the last 20 minutes,” he added.
The Imps manager went on: “We were poor today. It’s not often I say that about us, because we have been really good, especially starting the new year the way we did. But if you don’t turn up in a derby and physically match the opponents today and that is what happened today.”
City now turn their attention back to the league, where they entertain promotion hopefuls Sporting Khalsa, next weekend.
As for United, they prepare for a cup final against Stamford AFC.
Feature Image Credit: Ed Mayes Photography