Saturday 21 August 2004 - South Kesteven Sports Stadium - kick off 3.00pm Southern League Premier Division

City’s starting line-up saw two differences to the one that had beaten Merthyr Tydfil the previous Tuesday – one enforced and one not. The enforced change was Dean Stevens in for Russell Milton – away due to family circumstances. Steve Jones, the goalscorer at Merthyr, replaced Mike Trought, who had to content with a place on the bench. Facing a side that had lost both their opening two matches, without scoring a goal, you would have thought that City would have started strongly in an attempt to grab an early goal and knock their already low confidence. However, by contrast they seemed content to sit back and try to catch them on the break. Whilst his tactic worked well against a much stronger side in Merthyr it seemed misplaced against Grantham. And even when City did get possession, too often they tried to match the Gingerbread’s ineffectual long-ball game. As a result the game soon degenerated into a series of aimless punts forward and neither side seemed capable of bringing some control or skill to proce edings. The home side did manage to force a diving save out of Justin Shuttlewood on nine minutes, although Francis’ shot appeared to be going wide before the intervention of the keeper’s fingertips. One minute later the referee tried to enliven proceedings with a bizarre intervention. An over-hit pass forward was cleverly helped back to Shuttlewood via the knee of Jones. The referee immediately blew and awarded an indirect free-kick for handled a back-pass. The City players, showing a greater grasp of the laws (Law 12 – and indirect free-kick will be awarded if the goalkeeper touches the ball with his hands after it has been deliberately been kicked to him by a team-mate), than the man in black convinced him to check with his linesman. Thankfully realising that a keeper is allowed to pick up a ball kneed back to him he corrected the decision and restarted play with a drop ball. Once this excitement had passed the game soon resumed it’s uninspiring passage and it wasn’t until six minutes before the in terval that City finally came close to breaking the boredom, sorry, I mean deadlock. Steve Tweddle collected the ball some 25 yards out and, after a neat turn, fired in a shot that Ziccardi athletically tipped over bar.

The second half began with a chance for both sides. Shuttlewood couldn’t hold Connell’s crisply struck shot but did enough to clear the danger. And at the other end Tweddle was denied by Ziccardi’s legs after making some space on the edge of the area. This was a brief respite from the woeful showing by both sides and the game soon returned to its first half pattern. This was until three minutes after the hour mark when from nowhere Grantham took the lead. Graeme Power was harshly adjudged to have fouled Commons – he then received a booking for the ‘afters’ – and from the free-kick Wooding curled the ball into the net with Shuttlewood rooted to the spot. Ironically this goal finally seemed to wake City up and they began to play like they should have over an hour earlier. It did take a double substitution to inject the necessary pace to their attack to facilitate the change. Reinier Moor and Ricky Hulbert replaced the ineffectual John Williams and Stevens and suddenly the game was played almost exclusively in the Grantham half. This turnaround appeared to have yielded a deserved equaliser with eighteen minutes remaining when Moor‘s initial shot was only parried by Ziccardi. The ball pinged around the six yard box and despite Tweddle, Power and Hulbert all getting in shots somehow the ball was finally scrambled behind for a corner. The referee gave a goal kick. Still City pushed forward but they were restricted to optimistic long range efforts until deep into stoppage time. A throw-in by Owers was flicked on by Tweddle to an unmarked Power just six yards out. His header was on target but just too close to Ziccardi, allowing the keeper to react brilliantly and turn the ball over the bar. There wasn’t even time to take the corner.