No Thanks – David Puttnam

As a kid, I cannot tell you how much I liked David Puttnam. He used to fly down the wing with such ease, twisting and turning to confuse defenders and weigh in with the odd goal. I had a great argument around a dinner table with someone once when I named Puttnam in my greatest Lincoln City side of all time. I might have taken a bit of alcohol that night, but such was his legend in my eyes.

The year after City regained their Football League status three players joined the Club on loan from Leicester City. One was midfielder Paul Groves who went on to achieve success at Grimsby. Defender Grant Brown also signed, and he went on to establish legendary status at Sincil Bank by becoming City’s record appearance holder. The final player was David Puttnam.

David had started his professional career with home town team Leicester City after he was spotted playing for Leicester United but had been unable to break into the first team. After a successful loan period with the Imps he signed a permanent deal a fee of £35,000. He scored away at Scunthorpe in only his second game for City and went on to play in every remaining league game of the 1989/90 season.

Due to his trickery and ability to beat players he was always favourite amongst the fans, and was named “Player of the Season” in 1992/93. However, the next two seasons were disrupted by a succession of injuries and he wasn’t able to achieve his full potential. In his last full season (1994-95) he made just 11 league and cup starts, but still managed to score four goals.

He scored on the opening day of the turbulent 1995/96 season as City ran out 2-1 winners at Preston North End, but by the end of September he had been allowed to leave by Steve Wicks, moving to Gillingham. I could have cried but, as I was 17 back then, I didn’t. Obviously.

As a young fan he was exciting and brought an element of flair and skill to the Lincoln team. He scored the odd spectacular goal as well, and had it not been for injuries there’s no doubt he would have made well over 250 appearances and scored more goals as well. In 2007 he was voted 54th in the Imps centenary ‘legends’ poll, which backs up my argument that he was (to put it simply) ace.