14 years. How on earth is it 14 years since we went to Blundell Park and came away with a phenomenal 4-2 victory? It seems like yesterday and oddly, it seems much closer than the humblings we’ve had in the interim period.
I choose to forget being hit for five, going there hoping for nothing more than a draw and to avoid a slap on the walk back to the car. In 2004, that was probably what I expected. Instead, we got a result that still resonates with Imps’ fans almost a decade and a half later.
Looking back, 2004/05 was a golden age of Imps football, even if there’s little silverware to show for it. Crowds were up on the late eighties and early nineties, partly as a result of football cleaning up its act and partly due to the improve product on offer. We had to face Boston, Mansfield, Grimsby, Notts County and Scunthorpe too, all local derbies that we’d doubtless sell out in half an hour today. It was the time when Lincolnshire aligned and everyone wanted to be the so-called pride of the county.
Scunthorpe were claiming the title going into the game with Grimsby. They were second in the table, three points behind the leaders. Boston were in seventh, desperately hunting a play-off spot, leaving us and Grimsby in 9th and 16th respectively. Five points separated us and the Cods and we both knew our seasons depended on the win.
By October 2nd, the finest Imps team in a generation had two wins to their name. An opening day victory at Shrewsbury and a victory at Bury in September was the sum total of our endeavours, leaving us below all three of our local rivals and Mansfield. It did seem as though Keith’s bubble had burst somewhat after two years of play-off qualification.
Results picked up, started off by a 3-0 win at home to Kidderminster, we beat Oxford and Cambridge 1-0, managed a late 3-2 win against Northampton and beat leaders Yeovil 3-1 at the Bank. The team had got up and running, but the Grimsby clash had a lot riding on it.
Just a week prior to the derby, Jack Hobbs came on for his only Imps appearance as we drew 1-1 with Bristol Rovers. He was on the bench once more, as was the mercurial Peter Gain. In Gain’s place, Ciaron Toner.
The Imps lined up Marriott, Morgan, McAuley, Sandwith, Bloomer, McCombe, Toner, Butcher, Westcarr, Taylor-Fletcher and Simon Yeo. It was the typical 5-2-3 formation Keith favoured and would, as always, rely on a long ball from the back finding the talented front three, or rather the front two and Craig Westcarr.
It was an opening half hour few Imps fans could forget in front of 7,000 fans, 1,500 from Lincoln. Simon Yeo opened the scoring as early as the 13th minute with a typical goal for the period. A long ball forward got flicked on to Yeo and he finished with typical aplomb, rifling into the back of the net. Before the half hour mark it was two, once again Yeo was the provider. A Kevin Sandwith corner was delivered with accuracy, ending up at the feet of Taylor-Fletcher. He twisted and turned at the far post before rifling a shot across goal. The Grimsby keeper Williams could only push it to the feet of yeo, who banged in the second.
Going 2-0 up at your local rivals is always cause for celebration and the Imps sang loud and proud. Grimsby huffed and puffed, but they couldn’t find a way through the resolute back line, with City always a danger from a set piece or a long ball. It might not be the purists preferred method of approaching a game, but it didn’t matter one jot to City.
Half time came and went with us still in control, although the Cods came out with an anger in their play. Historically, to be fair, they’re the Pride of Lincolnshire and they certainly didn’t want to lose ground on the Scunts and some farmers from the south of the county, especially not when it was us doing the pegging back. They came at us with force and within five minutes they’d got one back.
Michael Reddy played an innocuous ball across the back four and both Morgan and McCombe failed to deal with it. Schoolboy defending which allowed sub Thomas Pinault to sweep in unchallenged at the back post and lash past Marriott. The wind blew hard in the Grimsby sails and they smelled blood. Nine minutes later, they were level.
It was another Reddy ball, this time hooked into a busy penalty area, that caused the problem. It got nudged to Stacy Coldicutt who lashed home from twenty yards to send Blundell Park into rapture. In the away end, desolation.
We’ve all been at those games, the ones you look comfortable in and are suddenly hit hard twice. As Coldicutt fired home the place erupted and there was a fleeting sense of panic. Having been 2-0 somewhere like Grimsby, it is not advisable to go back to 2-2, not with half an hour to play. Usually there’s only one outcome.
In this instance that moment was fleeting, literally one single minute. That was all it took to driver a dagger through the heart of the Grimsby revival and leave the travelling fans with a memory that lasts a lifetime. Taylor-Fletcher provided a ball from out wide and Yeo stole into the channel and struck a wonderful half volley past Williams and into the postage stamp, right in front of us. 3-2 City, and joy once more. From desolation one minute to ecstasy the next, all thanks to the flying right foot of Simon Yeo. He’d claim the match ball, but the Imps weren’t done.
Grimsby were. That goal suffocated their resistance and sixty seconds after getting their lifeline, they were gone.
Craig Westcarr was involved in the final goal, again courtesy of some good work by Taylor-Fletcher. He stumbled into the area from the left hand side, Westcarr laid the ball into the path of Ciaran Toner and he rattled home his first Imps goal of his career. With 19 minutes left to play City were 4-2 up and easily saw out the final period of play.
It’s never a long journey back down the A46 when you’ve got three points, something I hope they don’t get to experience this weekend. We breezed out of the ground, avoided a slap from angry Cods and a week later, beat Mansfield 2-0 at the Bank thanks to another Toner goal. He could have gone on to keep Gain out of the side, only he ended up getting put through Gary Simpson’s bonnet by Marcus Richardson and both saw their Imps careers die.
We salvaged real local pride with a win away at Boston, then made automatic promotion hopefuls Scunthorpe look average in front of the Sky Cameras in March, but our own charge to the top three was brutally halted. Defeats at Meadow Lane (1-0), Northampton (1-0) and Yeovil (3-0) condemned us to a sixth place finish, eight points adrift of Swansea City in third. As we know, the play-offs saw us beat Macclesfield over two legs before losing 2-0 to Steve Tilson’s slick Southend side.
Still, we’ll always have Yeo’s hat trick to remember, won’t we?