This game has perhaps tended to be rather overshadowed by the later meetings with Derby County but it shouldn’t be forgotten what an achievement it was, in fact only the second time the Imps had beaten a top division side in a cup competition. The only previous occasion had been seven years before when City were a second-tier club.
The next round draw was not exactly a ‘plum’ being against a Third Division side again, but at least it was another home tie with Torquay United the visitors.
Meanwhile, the Imps were brought down to earth in the league with a run of two defeats and three draws seeing a fall to mid-table. A change to the line-up was made with Billy Cobb dropping back into midfield in place of the released Barlow and 19-year-old Jack Lewis, signed from Long Eaton the previous March given a chance to show his attacking abilities up front.
Although the team had shown reasonably good league form so far one obvious defect had been a lack of height in the team with no player in the front four being over 5ft 9ins tall. This was remedied by the signing of 24-year-old Norman Corner, a six foot-plus former teammate of Mick Brown in Hull City’s reserves. He replaced Lewis in the side for a win over Newport County which put City 10th in the league table ready for the visit of a Torquay side riding high in Division Three with only an inferior goal average keeping them off top spot although they had just lost for the first time in the season, going down 3-0 at Barrow.
Torquay were managed by former Irish international Frank O’Farrell who was in the early days of a managerial career that would see him in charge of Leicester City before succeeding Sir Matt Busby at Manchester United. In the side were players who would also go on to take charge of teams in the top flight including defenders John Bond and Ken Brown who had won the FA Cup with West Ham four years previously. The Devon side also had a formidable strike force of Torquay legend Robin Stubbs and the prolific Jim Fryatt.
Although not cup-tied, Norman Corner had been signed too late to feature against Torquay so Jack Lewis was back in the side and gave City a sensational start, scoring twice in the first eight minutes. Four minutes later Roger Holmes contributed his eighth goal of the season, and four minutes after that George Peden blasted home a penalty in his usual style to put the Imps 4-0 up with 16 minutes played. The visitors roused themselves in the second half with two goals from Fryatt, but the Imps fully deserved their victory in front of a five-figure crowd only a couple of thousand down on the Newcastle match.
In the Fourth Round for the first time ever, the draw produced a mouth-watering tie with Derby County, an established top flight club until the early 1950s but who had spent the last ten years as a middling Second Division side. However, they were now in the process of being revitalised by manager Brian Clough six months after his appointment and were currently well in the top half of the league table. Despite this, and despite being away from home, after the win against Newcastle there was great feeling of optimism among the City supporters, and with Derby well within reach large numbers were expected to travel.