Ben Smith seals United’s victory as Imps see red

12:40pm Thursday 13th December 2007

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Hereford United 3 Lincoln City 1 HEREFORD United produced another gritty display to extend their unbeaten run to 10 matches and cement their place among the promotion contenders.

At the heart of their win was another excellent display by club captain Ben Smith whose contribution in central midfield has been immense over the last six weeks as the Bulls keep pace with the leaders.

"We have surpassed my expectations at the moment," admitted the former Arsenal trainee.

"But this is the best I have played at such a standard. I am really confident and I am really enjoying it.

"Moving between quite a few clubs - even though I have been at Hereford before - it takes time to get to know what is quite a lot of new players.

"It takes time to get into the team and get yourself playing the way you want to play and to get the other players to realise how you play. But I feel that that is the case now and I am really enjoying it."

Hereford had an early chance to stamp their authority on the game.

Theo Robinson's header from a Sam Gwynne corner was on its way into the net when it was handled by Gary Croft.

The Lincoln defender was red-carded and Robinson - with regular penalty-taker Trevor Benjamin on the bench - fired in his ninth goal of the season from the spot.

After that, however, for a while Lincoln made light of their numerical reduction and were gifted an equaliser when Wayne Brown dropped a cross and Lee Frecklington half-volleyed the Imps level.

But, a minute before the break, Smith's pass played in Trent McClenahan to fire an excellent strike into the corner of the net.

At least, that was the way it looked from the sidelines, but the players had a slightly different story.

"Trent had kept relatively wide so it made the pass really easy so I just put it into his path," said Smith.

"I'm sure he was shooting, but he might have been crossing. Who knows? Only he can say."

And McClenahan admitted: "The thought in my head was to cross it."

Adding with an ironic smile: "But my technique was that good that it went into the top corner.

"Sometimes they go for you, sometimes they don't.

Brown redeemed himself with a couple of excellent stops in the second period to keep the Bulls ahead.

The keeper parried expertly from Hamza Bencherif's header early in the half and then showed his remarkable reflexes to turn away Ben Wright's header.

And his fine work was rewarded eight minutes from time. Substitute Benjamin and Simon Johnson worked the ball into the area and it broke to Smith who marked his 100th appearance for the Bulls in style by crashing a shot past his namesake in the Lincoln goal.

"That is the one thing I have been disappointed with this season, not scoring as many goals as I would have liked," said Smith, who has scored a very respectable 24 times in his century of matches.

"But it fell to me, I managed to get a good strike on it and it went into the bottom corner.

"It was not as fluid as we would have liked. They went down to 10 men early on which you would think, with our passing style, would really have given us a chance to have a good go at them.

"But we were not perhaps as bright as we have been and the awful conditions made it hard.

"But these are the games where you have to grind out results and the victories all add up at the end of the season."

Hereford: Brown; McClenahan, Beckwith, McCombe, Collins; Gwynne, Smith, Diagouraga, Johnson; Robinson, Guinan (Benjamin, 82 min). Subs not used: Ingham, Taylor, Palmer, Jones.

Lincoln: Smith; Green (Hand, 82 min), Bencherif, Hone, Croft; N'Guessan, Kerr (Dodds, 83 min), Frecklington, Warlow; Wright, Forrester (John-Lewis, 64 min). Subs not used: Marriott, Watt.

Referee: Danny McDermid (London).

Attendance: 2,528 (209 from Lincoln).

Red card: Lincoln - Croft, deliberate handball, 9 min.

Yellow cards: Hereford - Robinson, kicking ball away, 72 min; Lincoln - Forrester, foul, 36 min; Bencherif, dissent, 50 min; Kerr, dissent, 69 min.

Goals: Robinson pen, 10 min, 1-0; Frecklington, 21 min, 1-1; McClenahan, 44 min, 2-1; Smith, 84 min, 3-1.