We are fantastic.

I mean, our team - this team - is fantastic. Get along and see it for yourself, if you haven't taken the opportunity already. The brand of football currently being played is as good as anything we've seen in a tiger generation and I doubt the bottom Division has ever witnessed such thrillingly fast-paced and imaginative attacking.

It might all go wrong - we're Hull City fans and it would be to defy our history to suppose a crash and crumple isn't just around the corner. Perhaps we will lose the astounding Green to a (temporarily) higher-placed club. Perhaps our rich collection of bookings will damage us as suspensions crowd in. Perhaps all we are seeing right now is a brief upward blip caused by the players' joy of liberation from the oppressive Molby yoke. But these last six games - three clear wins and three draws in which we were unarguably the superior side - have been hugely encouraging, and the final brace in particular, at home to Scunthorpe and now away at Lincoln, has revealed a wonderful quality of wit, flair and invention.

Now, you might think - hang on, is this sarcasm? I've got a bit of a track record, I admit. And - 1-1 at Lincoln: is that so great? We're in the bottom half of Division 4! And when I tell you Lincoln only had ten men for the majority of this match, you will be tempted to think these Tigers are going to have to produce an awful lot more to deserve this level of exultation. But I intend no sarcasm. Sure, this is a game we should have won. The gulf between these sides was easily three or four goals wide. But only wretched luck and obstinate woodwork kept us at bay. Lincoln City were vaporized by our power and energy, and someone soon is going to get an almighty trashing courtesy of our claws. More than that - football at this standard is going to get us promoted by Easter.

With Delaney stepping into midfield to plug the gap created by Ashbee's suspension, we carded:

Musselwhite
Regan Whittle Anderson Burton
Green Keates Delaney
Branch Alexander Williams

And it all began horribly badly. In the first minute Keates sent an inviting free-kick sailing wastefully high over the bar. And then, in the fifth, Lincoln scored. And it was a bizarrely ugly goal for us to concede. The Muss watched transfixed as a header looped over him. John Anderson scrambled back to clear but the loose ball fell to the beanpole Futcher, whose toe-ended shot wobbled nervily back towards our goal, which was gruesomely unprotected. The ball sighed into the netting. Everything stood still - there was an air of unreality, as if everyone was expecting a linesman's flag or the referee's whistle. But the goal stood. Perhaps our players were so mesmerised by pre-match hype about Lincoln's set-pieces that we expected something a bit more subtle than this lame and hopeful hoofery. But we had defended the situation appallingly badly, and had paid the ultimate price.

I mean, not actually the ultimate price. We'd gone one down away to Lincoln. That's not really the ultimate price, I don't think. No one was taken away to play in that game show like on "The Running Man", and no one got a stake up their bum, like Vlad the Impaler used to do. Or even found themselves in the pub beforehand discussing the relative merits of William Hague and Ian Duncan Smith, a development which took me by surprise, I must admit. Also, guessing crisp flavours. But anyway. Yes. 1-0 Lincoln.

It was time to get to grips with the dismal Imps. But we were confronted by a sturdy adversary. The crossbar. No one could quarrel with the award of the Man of the Match to the Lincoln woodwork, which was in defiant mood all afternoon. Williams zipped down the left wing and crossed at pace, only for a defender to flick the ball powerfully over his own keeper and hard against the bar. Our midfield is taking control, and Lincoln's lead is set to be short-lived.

Branch bursts through the middle on to a through ball from Green, only for the last Lincoln defender to tug despairingly at his shirt. Branch crumples to the ground and the ref duly brandishes red. It was harsh. Branch fell with practised ease under a feeble assault. Then again, cry no tears for Lincoln. We had outwitted them with a slick move, Branch's run was targeted directly on goal and the Imps have a track record of twenty years of on-pitch thuggery against us for which to atone.

Green belted the free-kick into the wall, but an equaliser was imminent. Regan, a capable attacker albeit an occasional defensive ditherer, sprints hard down the right and crosses to Delaney, who glances a header towards the back of the six-yard box, where Alexander intervenes with a meaty header into the corner of the net. A pacy move, an alert piece of finishing, and the ten men of Lincoln are in for a chasing.

And a chasing they got. We just couldn't stick the ball in their net.

Delaney won the ball with a firm tackle and released Williams down the left. His cross was batted away desperately, but Green returned the ball into the middle with a deft outside-of-the-boot chip, only for hasty defence again to repel the threat. Then Green transferred the ball from right to left, Williams headed the ball first-time on to Burton, whose cross reached Alexander's forehead, and his flick-on was well saved. Delaney again won possession with a well-judged tackle and passed to Williams, who slid a superb pass down the inside right channel for Green to chase and, with the home defence opened up like a sardine can, the shot carried not quite enough power to trouble Marriott (if it was Marriott. I'm not good on opposition goalkeepers). Then Keates, with the ball at his feet twenty-five yards out, spotted Branch's clever run and slipped a magnificent pass through the narrowest of gaps into Branch's stride just inside the box and behind the defence. Branch evaded the goalkeeper and turned his shot goalwards but a startlingly able piece of long-stop retreating defending by one of their lumps diverted the ball up and over the ball. Then Alexander, to Keates, to Branch - just offside, but a thrilling move.

On the few occasions Lincoln got the ball they generally just hoofed it into touch and checked their watches anxiously. Their sole tactic was to hurl long throws into our box and hope something ugly might happen. Next time you hear someone from Lincoln City FC moaning about the precarious finances of lower League football, ask them just why anyone should waste their hard-earned cash coming to witness this poverty-stricken, leaden apology for the beautiful game. It is our task to ride the shiny white charger brought to mind by Stuart Green's dazzling football boots and take the broadsword of truth and justice to these peasants.

We were utterly dominant and even in first-half add-on time we had two more near misses. Burton slipped the ball into space for Delaney to surge down to the by-line. His cross reached Anderson, ambitiously venturing into the opposition penalty area, but the shot was hasty and high. Then Delaney again won the ball in midfield and released Williams, but his cross was taken under pressure by the keeper. 1-1 at the break; it could have been 4-1.

It took us just twenty seconds of the second half to resume our fluent and hugely appetising display. A first-time touch by Williams gave Branch space to play Keates in for a shot, which was blocked at the expense of a corner. Then, peculiarly, Lincoln enjoyed a spirited few minutes. They even had a glimpse of a chance, when a flicked header from a cross flew wide of the Muss's left-hand post. But we were just resting.

Regan and Anderson combined effectively down the right and crossed deep into the box where Justin contrived to head the ball back square across the face of the goalmouth, where it was hoofed clear, instead of aiming for goal. Green struck an astonishing 60-yard pass on to the Branch toe, and Lincoln, stretched almost to breaking-point, conceded a corner with relief. Keates provided Green with a shooting chance but the ball slipped just wide of the far post. We weren't rolling forward quite as irresistibly as during the first half, perhaps because an awful midden of a pitch was draining strength from legs (especially those belonging to Delaney and Williams), but the tiger pressure was mounting.

If there was an anxiety, it was that a fussy referee might even things up and conjure up a red card for one of ours. Alexander, close to his bustling muscular best if a shade sharp-elbowed on occasion, sailed close to the wind but stuck at yellow. Burton too picked up a yellow for jostling a Linc to the turf, and though the meagre home support, all of whom look like Ploppy or Mistress Ploppy off the Blackadder episode where they execute the wrong man (ultimate price!), howled for a red, they were not entitled, for although there wasn't much cover behind Burton, the breaking player was heading away from goal.

Elliott now came on for Branch, and we hit sparkling heights once again. Green and Elliott are wonderful together, fast and imaginative, and with Keates in particularly vigorous form anchoring midfield and Regan operating as a supplementary right-winger, the winning goal looked inevitable. Green passed, Alexander stepped over the ball on the edge of the box, Elliott took it on and, from close to the penalty spot, blasted a ferocious shot past a bemused Marriott, and, thump, against the crossbar. Alexander wrestled his way eagerly to the rebound and nodded that too against the quivering woodwork, before a third chance fell to Green who headed over the top. It was an agonising moment, and it cost us two points. But it was fabulous attacking football.