With Sean Roughan moving on to Huddersfield, I thought it was time to look at our top academy graduates of the last 45 years.
I may have missed some, I may have been harsh on others, but I did have a very strict criteria. The players must have come from the academy from 1980 onwards, and we can’t have signed them directly as professionals, even if they were teenagers. That rules out the likes of Glenn Cockerill, Mark Camm and Lenny John-Lewis.
Also, the players have to have a senior appearance for the Imps, so no Robert Taylor, Scott Loach or Luke Dimech. We need to have seen the player in a Lincoln City shirt at senior level, and no, the Lincolnshire Senior Cup does not count!
After that, it’s open to interpretation what a top graduate is. Are we talking senior goals? Is the number of senior appearances a big factor? What about transfer fees? Can you look at what they later went on to do as an indicator of the academy being successful?
There are so many variables, which means the first set of players, from number 21 to 11, will cause some debate. The top ten, to follow soon, will cause full-on arguments!
I realised, thanks to a small miscalculation, I have 21 players on my list. Oops.