4 – Gary Willard
It’s 1994. Lincoln City had beaten Premier League Crystal Palace 1-0 in the first leg of our Coca-Cola Cup game courtesy of David Johnson. That fed belief we might just make it to the next round and a giant killing.
There’s no denying that at Selhurst Park, we weathered a storm as they poured forward. We held firm into the dying embers, 90 minutes elapsed, and it was still 0-0. We moved into injury time before the board went up to tell you how long there was to play. This is before half a minute for subs, before half a minute for goals, even though there hadn’t been any.
One minute elapsed. Three. Five. Six. Still no end to the game. The whistles rang loud from the away end as Palace had one last push forward. Referee Gary Willard seemingly wanted to play all night. Or at least until Bruce Dyer levelled the tie. After that, there was only going to be one winner. Luckily, we got a chance of revenge by drawing them in the third round of the FA Cup too.
Lost 5-1.
3- Phil Stant’s Penalty
After taking a replay to beat Gainsborough in the FA Cup first round, both matches being played at the Bank, we were rewarded with a tie against Unibond side Emley. They were winning 2-1 with seven minutes of injury time before the ghost of Gary Willard came to haunt them, Terry Fleming affording us another replay.
We went to the McAlpine Stadium in Huddersfield knowing a win would give as an away trip to West Ham. All that stood in our way was a proper village team, Emley. We took a 2-0 lead, they pulled it back to 2-2 to send the tie into extra time. They got a penalty on 111 minutes to make it 3-2, but a late Mark Hone strike earned us a draw. On to penalties.
You know what happens next.