Ian Culverhouse was left bemoaning the state of The Walks pitch as his side came unstuck on the gluepot surface against a side struggling against relegation.

The Linnets boss has cast a wary eye on the playing surface for some time and the visit of St Ives clash proved his suspicions were correct as Lynn's early-season free-flowing football which has helped sweep them to the top of the league came unstuck.

And he was pulling few Boxing Day punches in his post-match assessment.

'Fair fair to St Ives,' he said. 'They came and put a lot of bodies behind the ball and started the game a lot better than us. We were a little bit lethargic – I thought the whole place was flat today.

'The state of that pitch is a leveller. The pitch is absolutely shocking, it is a disgrace. There's no home field advantage – we haven't got it. The pitch isn't good enough.

'We can't do anything with it, The money wasn't spent on it that should have been spent on it, You saw us at the start of the season how we got the ball down and try and play.'

Culverhouse wouldn't be drawn on whether the surface could be the undoing of the club's promotion hopes, but it certainly won't help. Even Lynn's goal came from a set-piece, the mud unable to take the sting out of Simon Lappin's superb left-foot free-kick on the half-hour mark.

Lappin had already had a sighter with his right-foot, forcing keeper Tim Trebes to tip the ball on to the bar.

Lynn's defence was all over the shop three minutes after the re-start when St Ives levelled. Peter Clarke broke down the left channel and squared it to Danny Watson who was in acres of space, hardly a Lynn player in sight. All he had to do was sidefoot it home past the terribly under-protected Street.

Lynn: Street, Norman, Ward, Gaughran, Blake-Tracy, Jarvis, Clunan, Lappin (Siddons 87), Parker (Mettam 46), Hawkins (McQuaid 84), Gash. Subs not used: Fryatt, Frary.

St Ives: Trebes, Smith, Warner-Eley, Libertucci (Rogers 70), Groves, Kelly, Clarke, McGowan, Watson (Sawyer 81), Snaith, Baker. Subs not used: Jarrold, Ferrell, McGeorge.

Ref: A Wilson. Att: 801