Images of a season.

Over the past season i attended 80 live match's from the Premiership to the Doncaster senior league. When the Imps are away its good sometimes to go and watch some non league football for a fraction of the cost. In this post i have found some pictures out of different grounds that have been visited. I hope you enjoy them.
The first set is from the FA Cup. Lincolns early season away games matched when most of the early rounds of the FA Cup were being played. Over 900 teams enter the FA cup and before the Imps enter in round one six rounds have already been played. The big sides in the Championship and Premiership join the party in the 3rd round, A stage Lincoln made this year for the 1st time since 1999.
The FA cup
Extra preliminary round.
We start the Journey in inner city Nottingham to watch Rainworth Miners Welfare out play Radford fc from start to finish.


Premliinary Round
Rainworth progress again this time beating Heater st Johns 3-1


I watched Retford United take on Lincoln United in the first qualifying round. It finsihed 1-1 on the day but Lincoln took the replay 2-1

For the 2nd Qualifiying round it was back to the outskirts of Nottingham to watch Eastwood beat Corby Twon 2-1. Corbys fans were some of the best i encounted on my travels this season.


I watched Lincoln United host Frickley in the 3rd Qualfying round. It finished 1-1 but United won the replay on penalties to go through.


1ST Round Proper AFC Telford v Lincoln City (1-3)

2nd Round Proper Northwich Victoria v Lincoln City 1-3


3rd Round Proper Bolton 4-0 Lincoln city


Germany
The season started with Lincoln Citys pre season tour to Germany to play FC Celle.
It was a great couple of days away even though we lost. On the way to Celle we checked out Werder Bremans stadium and tucked into some great tasteing German Beer. Very very good times.The then Lincoln manager Peter Jackson took time to chat to us and Lincolns cheif Exc baught us at least three rounds of beer in the ground. We were four of about eight Lincoln fans in the ground.
Werder Breman stadium

FC Celle fc stadium




Crusaders 1-0 Colraine.
I took a few days of work to travel to Northern Ireland to watch the Irish cup holders beat Colaraine. Belfast is a great city don't let the media bias put you off Belfast is everything Dublin is,But better.



Berwick Rangers 2-2 East Stiringshire
A great weekend away with the Retford Imps. Beer,Pizza,football what can be better? oh and Lincoln beat Bournemouth as well!



In the 2009/10 season Gainsborough Trinity were Lincolnshires top ranked Non-league club. I saw them four times through out the season. It was another poor year for the blues. Lets hope its better next time around

Home town sides
couple of pics from Retford Town (Top) and Retford United.


Sutton Town fc

Harworth CI

The dugouts at Newark Town fc

The Main stand at Goole Town (Goole 0-3 Lincoln in pre season)

Main Stand at Shirebrook Town

Long Eaton United fc


Burton Albion 1-0 Lincoln
We went one down in the first min and thats how it stayed.

Grimsby Town 2-2 Lincoln City
Possibly the most important Lincolnshire derby in our history 2-2 was our best league result of the season.


Every picture tells a story. This is Relegated Grimsby,s

Darlington 1-1 Lincoln City
A goal 5 minutes into injury time rescued a point for on a Freezing cold night away at rock bottom Darlington. Darlington built a 25,000 all seater stadium with Premiership football in mind in the early 2000,s. They now average about 2,000 and slipped out of the football league this season,which is a shame as its a great little club that were sold a dream that they couldn't live up to by an ex owner



Chesterfield 2-1 Lincoln City
Last ever visit to Saltergate as Chesterfirld have a new ground for next season. For me this is one of the last old school football grounds and in a way i will miss it.

London Calling

The Imps have added a further three away pre season matches all in the London area. I haven't been to any of these grounds so I could be tempted to take one of them in.

The games are as follows

10th July Staines Town (Blue square south)
17th July Walton Casuals (Ryman Premier league)
20th July Bishop Stortford (Blue square south)

Although i always like to go to new grounds i can't help thinking the club are wasting money traveling all the way down to London to play these matches when we have plenty of local non-league clubs at similar levels we could be playing and would give us as good a work out. Gainsborough, Eastwood, Boston, and Alfreton Town are all in the blue square north which is the same as the blue square south. The Ryman league is the southern equivalent to the Unibond league of which there are plenty of options locally.
Retford has good train connections with London so when i get over this hangover i will check it out. Once in London we can use the Tube or we could even catch a famous red London bus;


Although after some research, it seems all of these teams aren't in Central London, seems i may have to take to the streets of London a little more than I anticipated!

The Mind of an Imps blog Lincoln city awards.

Yep its that time of year when i look back at the high and low points of the season gone by. The awards are spilt into three this year. The Lincoln City awards, The Non-league awards and the Gourmet food awards.
The Lincoln awards are first up.

Player of the season award.

When choosing a player of the year i think you have to look at the season as a whole. And for me the only players who could have been considered for the award are Scott Kerr, Rob Burch, and Cian Houghton. So it gives me pleasure to give this year's award to Cian Houghton.

For me he has been a class act this season and one of the few bright spots in a dreadful campaign. We took a chance on him; only giving him a six month contract and he grabbed his chance with both hands. For me he is at his best on the wing but he also did well at full back. Now if he can just get his dad to bring Newcastle down here for a pre season friendly.



Most disappointing player.

Khano Smith. Despite being described as an "MLS Star" and a Bermudan International, he spent most of his thankfully short spell at Lincoln on his arse. His "Performance" at Northwich in the FA cup live on ITV has probably killed his career in England.

Best Home performance.

This is a tough one. I missed three home games that we won and from all accounts we played really well in all three (Bradford,Chesterfield and Bournemouth) But as i didn't see them i cant include them. I will go for our 1-0 win over Aldershot in Chris Sutton's first game in charge.

Worst Home Performance

Plenty of choice here! Notts County, Burton, Shrewsbury, Torquay, Morecambe, and Port vale were all dreadful, but i will go for the 0-2 at Home to Burton.

Best away Performance

We have join winners here.
Lincoln, as most people know have a super crap record in the FA cup, and before this season hadn't made the 3rd round since 1999. So when we were drawn away in the 2nd round at Blue square north side Northwich Victoria (two leagues below the Imps) we all feared the worse.

The fact that the game was live on national TV and the fact that Northwich had dumped league one Charlton in round one just added to the pressure. We controlled the first half and kept them at arms length. When they scored we hit straight back and didn't buckle like i have seen City do so many times before in the FA cup. We went through got a decent tie away at Premiership Bolton and invested the prize money in the squad which helped us stay up.

The second winner goes to the away Lincolnshire derby at Grimsby.
The aim here was simple. Don't lose this game. We took an early lead, the cods hit two either side of the break to take the lead and suddenly our position in the table was looking very bleak.

We did hit back though, but after that the game could have gone either way. Both sides went for the three points. We had a goal chalked off for no reason and in the last minute of extra time Grimsby had what looked like a decent shout for a penalty turned down. Had we lost here then i really think Grimsby would have stayed up at our expense. We all saw the run they went on after they smashed us 5-1 the season before. This one was of the best Lincolnshire Derbys i have seen and must have been great to watch as a neutral. The point came at a cost though as Adam Watts broke his leg, so that was our best defender out for the season. Had he stayed fit he would have been a contender for the player of the year award.
The fish and chips pre match were very nice to. I will genuinely miss the derby match at Grimsby next year.

Worst away trip
Darlington. Freezing cold night, under 2000 in a 25,000 seater stadium poor performance away at the bottom of the table. At least we got a point in the last minute.

All smiles in the pub before the away game at Darlington, little did we foresee the crap we were about to watch unfold before our very eyes.

Most enjoyable away day.

Apart for the trip to FC Celle in pre season i have decided to go for Bradford City away. Nice stadium, Lincoln saved a penalty and then scored two goals in a minute, and for the most part played Bradford city of the park. It was back in August so it was also t-shirt weather which always adds to the feel good factor. This was to be Jackos last win in charge and it was probably one of his best.

Another factor which helped was we had a great kebab after the match. Below is the menu and if in the area i strongly recommend a visit. The Retford Imps will be dining here again next season!!!



Best new ground visited

Afc Telford


Worst new ground

Burton Albion- the game was crap aswell.


Move of the season.
Only two contenders really; in second place, our goal at home to Rochdale, but well out in front is the old boy who sold Baz a dummy down his left hand side to sneak in front of him in the car park away at AFC Telford.

This lead to the conversation of the season

Baz -Where the fuck you think your going old boy? Oh right your going there

Myself and Fleech - He's done you Baz, the old boy's done you!!!!!

Baz - Fuck off!

Trust me it was funny at the time.

Most helpful person found on our travels.

The bearded wonder of Derbyshire who helped us park up in the car park near Chesterfield fc. On closer inspection the chap didnt have a beard.

Closed season week two.

Well its week two of the closed season and its all go at Sincil Bank!
Three new signings, a player leaves and the draw for the semi final for the Lincs cup is made.
For me the most welcome bit of news was that the Rob Burch saga has finally come to an end. He was offered one of the best contracts Lincoln have ever offered a player a few months back but didn't seem too keen on staying. So after months of being messed around Chris Sutton has had enough and signed another keeper for the Imps.

Rob who?

Former England youth international keeper Joe Anyon has been signed on a two year contract following his release from Port Vale. He was Vale's player of the season in 2007/08 but broke his leg the next year and has struggled to get his place back. I have no idea if he is any good or not but we will soon find out.
We have also added to our midfield. Central Midfielder Josh O'Keefe has been signed after being released by Blackburn. He spent last season on loan at league one Walsall. At 6'3" he will add some height to the midfield and hopefully score us a few as that was one area (well one of many) that we were weak in last season.
Also signed on for the next season is Torquay United winger Mustapha Carayol. I didn't go to the away match at Torquay but from reading the reports he was a thorn in the side for the Imps all game so lets hope he can be as affective for the Imps. He has pace to burn apparently and pace was another thing we lacked last season.

Lincolnshire cup draw.

So a month or so after Grimsby's relegation we get paired with them in the Lincs cup. Well we knew we would be playing them as there are only three sides in the thing and the previous years winners get a bye to the final. The tie takes place on July the 31st with a 3pm kick off at Grimsby's Blundell park. Looks like a trip on the train, a few beers and fish and chips beside the seaside before the match. Scunthorpe United await the winners.

Grimsby Towns Blundell Park

Last up is the news that Lennel John-Lewis has left the club. I remember watching him make is debut as a sub away at Port Vale in the FA cup in the 2006/07 season and thinking we have a really good prospect on our hands here. In my view he has under achieved as i feel he could be a league two striker. Hopefully he will have the hunger to get a deal at a conference side, get a few goals and get his career back on track.

Prices for the two home friendlies are £10 for the Norwich City game and £15 for the Celtic XI match.