For the first, we’re going back six years. It seems like such a long time ago now, but I want to revisit another thrashing we handed out to Carlisle; our first home win in the Football League after earning promotion from the National League.
2359 days. That’s how long there was between us beating Southend United in 2011 and Carlisle United in 2017. It was a period where league football wasn’t gracing the Sincil bank turf, a period where we wandered lost in the wilderness. On August 26th, we found our way. It wasn’t our first game back in the Football League, it wasn’t our first home game, but it was that elusive first win.
The Imps lined up Farman, Long, Waterfall, Raggett, Eardley, Maguire-Drew, Bostwick, Woodyard, Arnold, Rhead, and Green. The bench had Habergham, Whitehouse, Palmer, Knott, Dickie, and Anderson. The game was certainly more popular than the fixture back in 1991 – 8,345 were in the ground to watch us finally put three Football League points on the board.
City opened the scoring just after half an hour through the tenacity and determination of Matt Green. He refused to give up the ball even when it wasn’t entirely under his control, and when Alex Woodyard strode towards it, you have expected row Z to duck in avoidance. Woody had only scored once for the Imps, away at Forest Green, and after this game, he wouldn’t score again for anyone until February 2020. However, he placed a beautiful effort past the despairing keeper.
He got his second of the game, the only brace of his career so far, courtesy of big Matt Rhead. He threaded a fine pass through for Woodyard, who found himself in an unusually advanced position. He never broke stride as he collected the pass, powered into the area, and fired the ball past Jack Bonham. 2-0, and you would have thought it would be game over.
On 68 minutes, it was game over. Matt Green worked his way into the channel and powered passed Tom Parkes. He hauled Green down and gave the ref no option but to award a penalty and give Tom Parkes a second yellow. Eddie Ilderton, the referee, had curiously been in charge the last time Lincoln City players had scored more than two in a Football League match (3-1 against Hereford United, the other time we scored three, against Oxford, there were two own goals).
The obvious choice was Woodyard for the penalty, to give him a hattrick, and despite his best arguments, Matt Rhead took it and scored. I hate to see people arguing over who takes a penalty, and in this instance, Rhead was right to do so – he was the penalty taker; we were only 2-0 up, and had we missed and conceded, we’d have been under pressure. Woodyard was consoled by Luke Waterfall as the others celebrated.
We were forced to wait another week for our first Football League clean sheet as Reggie Lambe made it 3-1 for ten-man Carlisle, but it was all in vain. Two subs, Billy Knott and Harry Anderson, combined to give the former his first and only EFL goal for the Imps, celebrated in front of the 617 as if his life depended on it. I always felt there was a super talent in Billy Knott, but he was a troubled young man, and sadly he never quite reached the heights his unbelievable ability hinted at. It was his final goal for the Imps, a sneaky taste of what might have been.
The final whistle came before any more goals were added, but it was a fine victory for us over Carlisle and one that contributes to Gavin Skelton’s recent assessment that this is a trip that is ‘historically difficult‘ for them.
Indeed, the last time the Cumbrians won at the Bank, three players were sent off, and their chairman ended up appearing at Gainsborough Magistrates Court.
