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Rampant St Anne’s smash seven past sorry Lincoln

Lincoln 3 – 7 St. Anne's St Anne’s moved within a point of Worcester at the top of the JCR Premiership yesterday, comfortably despatching a sorry Lincoln side languishing at the bottom of the division. After a painful defeat to Wadham last week, Anne’s have bounced back confidently with a 4-0 rollover of Jesus and today’s 7-3 drubbing, and now lead the pack chasing down the reigning champions. Before this match Lincoln had picked up a single point from nine games, and it soon showed – this game was a contest for under a minute. The home side were left standing as Anne’s moved the ball quickly down the left wing, before Steve Clarke’s low cross was converted by hotshot Jacob Lloyd, bagging his ninth of the season and putting Anne’s in front after just 47 seconds. A second followed immediately, with Clarke’s deep free kick expertly knocked down by defender Chris Hollingdale, leaving Ed Border with the simplest of headed finishes. A third was quickly added, Robbie MacDonald racing onto keeper Mike Butler’s long kick before gently arcing his lob over the stranded keeper. ‘I’ve been looking for that assist all season’, cried Butler, but surely hadn’t anticipated the lack of a challenge from a single Lincoln defender. The punishment continued. Full back Andrew Royle powered down the left-flank, firing a cross across goal towards Border, who swivelled and finished from close range. 4-0 up after eight minutes, Anne’s were currently heading for a 45-0 victory. To their credit, Lincoln kept fighting. Very soon, striker Nicholas Long set off on a powerful counter-attacking run from the halfway line, beating two Anne’s defenders and leaving one on his backside before cutting in and sliding in a low finish. Yet Lincoln’s joy was shortlived. From kickoff, Anne’s immediately forced a corner to the right of the goal. It was cleared, but looped towards midfielder Steve Clarke, lurking well outside the box. Clarke, with a movement reminiscent of a combination of Zidane and Rooney, hit a volley which thundered unstoppably into the topleft hand corner of the Lincoln net, almost bursting it asunder. The satisfying clunk of the ball hitting the angle on its way in was replaced by an instant of stunned silence, before a yell of delight from every Anne’s player. Clarke set off on a mad sprint of celebration, only to be rugby tackled and disappear beneath a mass of mint-green shirts, with the prominent purple top of Butler at the top of the heap. Clarke was keen to make sure that this reporter had seen what was a true contender for goal of the season. A sixth soon followed, Stu Clarke bundling home after some silky wingplay from MacDonald. From this point on, the game went downhill, Anne’s missing a series of chances and Lincoln only flickering spasmodically. It remained 6-1 until half-time, after which Anne’s came out strongly. Lloyd and Crouch both went close, before Steve Clarke had a goal ruled out for offside – the first of three disallowed Anne’s goals that half. Soon after this, your intrepid reporter plunged into the fray, and had an up-close view of the majestic Border completing his hat-trick, holding off two vicious tackles before slotting past the keeper. As one Anne’s player said: ‘They were unable to fell the great oak’. Lincoln kept showing pride, fighting back with two good goals – first Long breaking again from an Anne’s corner before superbly crashing the ball into the top corner, and then Matthew Flood rising well to head home from a corner. But the game was long over as a contest. Border came close to a fourth, denied only by a superb save from Lincoln keeper James Nutton, whose fine second half performance was key to Anne’s not adding to their tally. The final score of 7-3 reflected Lincoln’s impressive doggedness in the second half, but also the understandably lax finishing of an Anne’s side who had wrapped up victory long ago, and will remember this game only for that first, thrilling, seventeen-minute period which saw them go 6-1 up, and included the best goal of their season. They now face an exciting run-in, competing with Oriel, Teddy Hall and Wadham in the pursuit of the mighty Worcester.by George Kynaston

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