The 1977/78 season was far from special. It was only our second consecutive season in the Third Division after Graham Taylor’s side earned promotion, and only our third at that level since it stopped being regionalised.
George Kerr had been sacked for the first time, and Willie Bell came in to take his place, but the Imps still floundered. In February 1978, around the time this writer was being conceived, Bell’s side got up and running despite suffering their first defeat after an eight-game unbeaten run, losing 3-1 at Walsall despite taking the lead through Alan Jones.
Bell attempted to bolster his squad by signing Leeds United’s David McNiven for £25,000, but the deal collapsed after the player’s wife refused to relocate from Bradford. City bounced back with a 1-0 win over Portsmouth at a snowy Sincil Bank (snowing, Dad not living within walking distance of a pub…. it all makes sense now), with Jones scoring again. The victory kept them 15th in the league, just six points above relegation but only three points off sixth in a tightly contested table.
A visit to Chesterfield was postponed due to bad weather, meaning their next fixture was a Friday night clash against promotion-chasing Wrexham at Sincil Bank. The Red Dragons would go on to win the division by three points, and they certainly made their presence felt at the Bank under the floodlights.
Wrexham featured Dixie McNeil, a former Imps who was bagging goals for fun in Wales. Our own line up had a familiar feel, but one of a side slowly breaking up. We lined up Peter Grotier, Brendan Guest, Dennis Leigh, Phil Neale, Clive Wigginton, Terry Cooper, Alan Jones, Peter Graham, Mick Harford, Phil Hubbard and Alan Harding, with Dave Smith on the bench.
Bell was described as still being a mystery man to Imps fans, and perhaps they’d have preferred it stayed that way. McNeil certainly wasn’t, and it was his 36th-minute goal that ultimately settled the contest. Described by the great wordsmith Maurice Burton succinctly, ‘I suppose one should call it a fluke’, it still counted. His mis-hit shot was easily covered by Grotier, only for Guest to see it take a cruel deflection off him and into the net.
In the second period, City had chances, and it’s reported that if we’d been as clinical as McNeil was for us or as flukey as he had been for them in the first half, we’d have taken something from the Champions-elect. They’d also reach the quarter-finals of the FA Cup and League Cup, and win the Welsh Cup, giving them a place in Europe the following season. Not too shabby.
Willie Bell was delighted with City’s application in the second half, saying ‘It shows what we have to play like if we are a force to be reckoned with in the coming months’. Still, Mr Burton did conclude that our lack of clinical finishing in the final third was a problem Bell needed to sort, even if that wasn’t to be David McNiven.
The loss of John Ward was widely lamented, and while a young Harford was described as having ‘great promise’, Mr Burton concluded that Peter Graham couldn’t do it all alone, while Alan Jones let himself down by putting in good work only to have no end product. Even the introduction of the great Dave Smith for Alan Harding did little to put creativity into the Imps’ game, and in the final minutes, Graham, clearly a favourite of the reporter, fired straight at their keeper Davies, a chance ‘he would have undoubtedly snapped up a few years back’.
This was a Lincoln City team on the slide, falling down Division Three and just 15 months from a pitiful relegation. McNeil was surprised by the apathy of the home support, not two years on from the euphoria of promotion. “What has happened to the crowd,” said McNeil, who had a single season with the Imps. “They were always good to me while I was here, but they were quiet tonight.” How quickly dissent sets in.
All in all, while City showed wastefulness up top, the defence was praised, and Mr Burton concluded that ‘as a match, I have seen a lot worse at Sincil Bank over the years’ whole the Imps fought ‘extremely hard against a side clearly a class above them in confidence and performance’. Still, only 6,600 saw the game, a decline of 1,100 from the previous season’s fixture.
By the end of the 1978/79 season, home crowds would dip below the 2,000 mark on a regular basis. That is when something can be described as ‘most fans staying away’ can actually be reflected in numbers, rather than a bit of social media hyperbole.
You’ve got all this way in the article, and I bet you’re wondering about the headline. Surely, Jack Charlton, Bobby Robson and Francis Lee were not playing for Wrexham? Correct, they were not. They were in the stands, watching players as this was a Friday night game. Robson was in charge of Ipswich, but it would be he who gave Harford an England debut 12 years later. Charlton was in charge of Sheffield Wednesday, but would later famously go head-to-head with Robson as manager of Ireland at Euro 88.
Francis Lee was seemingly scouting, having only been out of football for a couple of seasons, while another future international manager was also in attendance – Graham Taylor. “Lincoln should have got a result from their second half display,” said the Watford boss. “If they had, Wrexham would only have had themselves to blame.”
