Best and worst of the 2010/11 season:Lincoln City

So as i place the beers in the fridge ahead of my last TV match of the season; the England v Switzerland European championship qualifier, I feel its time to look back over the season just gone. Like last year i will do it in two parts. A part dedicated to Lincoln and the other part to cover all the other random matches i have seen from across the non league pyramid. I have had a few weeks to ponder and reflect so here are my views.

Lincoln City player of the season.
This is a tough one to start of with. It goes without saying that any side that finishes 2nd bottom of league two is going to struggle for candidates for an award like this one. In truth you could count on one hand the amount of players that had a "good" season for Lincoln. I have whittled it down to three.
In third place for me is Delroy Facey. I am a big Delroy fan. Ok he isn't going to score 20 goals a season but his link up play creates plenty of chances for others. As soon as he was injured against Macclesfield the goals dried up for the rest of the season and the rot set in. His leadership qualities were also fantastic and was everything that Scott Kerr wasn't as a Captain.
In second place is a player who Chris Sutton judged surplus to requirements and sent out on loan for the first half of the season,; Danny Hone.
On his return he was the only defender who looked like he knew what he was doing and showed any fight. I am very glad that he has been offered a new deal by the club although I wouldn't blame him if he left for a league club because he is too good for us.
I never normally give loan players awards in things like this because technically they aren't Lincoln players but on this occasion I am going to throw all that out of the window. Had it not been for the goals of Ashley Grimes we would have been down long before the last game of the season. He suffered by the loss of Delroy Facey but put plenty of effort into his matches. I fully expect him to be playing and scoring plenty of goals in league one next season.

The most disappointing* player of the season
*feel free to replace this word with any others you want ;-)

Plenty of contenders here as you can imagine, so many i don't know where to start. The likes of Elliot Parish, Joe Anyon, Albert Jarrett, Julian Kelly, and Moses Swaibu were all poor at some stage but one man eclipses them all. The winner hands down of this award is Mr Drewe Broughton. He takes his place amongst the likes of Joe Allen and Tony Battersby as the worst centre forwards i have seen don the red and white stripes. Christ what a front three that would be eh folks?

Best home game of the season
Not too many to pick from but i will shoot for the home match with Maccelesfield. It was the game after Chris Sutton resigned which made for a good atmopshere, we played well, and it featured a great free kick from Jamie Clapham.

Worst home game of the season.
Again we have a whole batch of contenders here. I missed the 0-6 home defeat by Rotherham so i can't count it. Torquay, Bury, Shreswbury, Gillingham,and Aldershot all brought pitiful performances from the Imps but i am going to go for the 0-2 defeat by Cheltenham as it was a game that we really needed to get something out of against a poor team and we just crumbled.

Best away day
Easy enough for me. It has to be our trip to Bradford when the Imps came from behind to win 2-1.
Read all about it here! The 4-3 win at Stockport was also a contender and will take 2nd place with our trip to Oxford 3rd despite the poor result.

Worst away day of the season.
You get bad away days every season. However once in a while you get one that is an absolute stinker,one so bad you use it as a yard stick to judge crappy performances. "Yes we were shit but it wasn't half as bad as ... (insert game here)" as we can often be heard saying when we leave a match. Up until this season myself, Baz and Felice used the performances at Wycmombe and Chesterfield in 98/99 and Halifax in 99/00 as our yardstick of shite. This season we induct the away game at Accrington Stanley into this famous little group. The first new inductee into our great hall of shite for 11 years. That statistic alone give you a measure as to how crap we were that night. If you missed it read it all again here. But its not for the faint hearted. Burton Albion would be second, although it was made better by the failure of Felice's bread quest. Third was the opening day trip to Rotherham United. There are much better things to look at in the local area instead of watching a match at the Don Valley so why people go there beats me.

Best food of the season.
The meat and potato pie with mash and gravy at Stockport county wins hands down. The chips at Burton were also fantastic as were the burgers by all accounts.

Worst food of the season
This award is getting almost as predictable as guessing the winner of the SPL league championship for the last three years. Yes the award goes to Lincoln City FC! From burgers to pies and sausage rolls to hot dogs its all dreadful. If you must eat at the ground then please go for the food in the trust suite. Its much nicer.

Whilst on the topic of food i have to mention our regular pre match fish and chip shop. This being the King Neptune fish bar on the high street. We always get plenty and whatever we have, be it pie and chips, sausage and chips even the kebab and chips its always been very nice and great value. We look forward to contributing to their business in the coming season.

Away pub of the season
Two pubs stand out for me this season. We didn't go in too many last year but that is something i hope to rectify next year. I can't really split them but they are the Old Red Lion at Barnet and the Catherine Wheel at Oxford. I could have a decent session at either and on reflection it I would have been better staying in them instead of watching the matches.


Old Red Lion



Catherine Wheel

Kebab of the season
I know this could be included in the food awards but we have had quite a few this season so i think its only fair that they get  there own section. Last seasons defending champion of the kebab awards; Hannahs in Bradford is no longer with us so we have a new champion. In second place is the one we had at the pre season game in Bishop Storford called the Kebaberry. This year's winner is the mixed kebab we had on the way back from Accrington Stanley.

"Character" of the season
You tend to meet alot of "interesting and unique people" following a lower league football team and the 2010/11 season was no exception to that rule as we bumped into the normal assortment of weirdos. There was none stranger than the friend that Baz made at the pre season match at Bishop Storford. The guy was half stoned half drunk and took a shine to Baz. He told us how his gran was from Lincoln and was a Lincoln/Ipswich/Man Utd fan and quite boring to boot, well in my mind anyhow. His best quote was "They had a young old side did Germany at the World Cup"

Baz however was getting on with him like a house on fire. We moved behind the goal for the second half and he still followed us. We pretty much had the whole stand to ourselves but he still managed to stand a mere half inch from Mr Oxby. Reports seem to suggest that they are still in contact but I must stress Baz can't confirm these.

Best moments of the season
Having been relegated you can imagine there haven't been too many of these but if i had to pick one it would be Felice handing over the ticket money i won after our Delroy/Drewe bet and his comment of "I hope you choke on it you bastard".
His view on Jack Lester when he said "Pah! The cunts not good enough to lace my boots" was also priceless. I also enjoyed us getting lost in Southwest London in pre season when a combination of Baz's dodgy directions and having an A-Z of London that didn't cover the area of London we were in conspired against us. The antics of Kool Cat and Poacher before games at the Bank were also highpoints and provided us with more entertainment that the actual matches.

Worse moments of the season
 This sight after the last game of the season.