Lincoln City 1, Bowers & Pitsea 0

BRAVE Bowers and Pitsea put on a tremendous performance in the FA Cup first round at League One Lincoln City on Saturday – just running out of steam in the second half after going so close to scoring in the first half when there was little difference between the sides separated by 99 places in the football pyramid.

Bowers, in front of a large group of travelling supports, came closest to opening the scoring when evergreen Max Cornhill smashed the ball against the Imps' crossbar after getting on the end of Quentin Monville's long throw.

And then an angled free kick from Jamie Dicks evaded everyone and appeared destined for the net until a late dive by Lincoln keeper Sam Long saw him at full stretch to tip the ball wide.

Lincoln began to boss the game in the second half as their fitness told but Bowers still defended manfully and were always in the game, though they were grateful to a couple of excellent saves from Mitchel Beeney.

In the end the Imps greater strength told and on 67 minutes Max Sanders got on the end of a ball that bobbled around the right side of the box and crashed an angled ball home though Bowers were sure an offence had been committed in the moments before and desperately appealed in vain to referee Edwards to rule the goal.

There were more fine saves to come from Beeney in the closing stages but in the end Lincoln saw the game out, leaving Bowers with a tinge of disappointment about what might have been but an incredible amount of pride in their cup journey that saw them create club history.