I’ve been crunching some numbers to find the most prolific Lincoln City strikers.
There were a number of criteria I wanted to use, but the basic one was goals per game. Which players, since the Second World War, have the best return for the Imps in terms of goals per game?
Now, this could be affected by some factors, which I have taken into consideration. Firstly, the player must have played 25 games or more in total for the Imps, 20 of which must have been in the Football League.
Only goals scored in the Football League count, so no loan player smashing them in against some Under 21 side can make the list (unless they’ve done the same in the senior team).
So, 25 appearances or more in the Football League, post-war, who have been the best strikers the Imps have had?
Before we start, a big shout-out to Joe Bonson. He tied with our number 25 on 0.34 goals per game, but he only played 47 games, and those who played more should place higher. He played for Wolves, Cardiff City and Newport early in his career, coming to us late on.
With 16 goals in 47 matches, he ranked joint-25th on our list. However, he did not make number 25.
25th – Gary Taylor-Fletcher (0.34)
Gary Fletcher, as he was, came from Leyton Orient early in Keith Alexander’s second reign as manager. There was little doubt his arrival was funded by our 2003 play-off final appearance, but even so, he’d experienced a stuttering career. Keith knew him from his time at Northwich, but a move to Leyton Orient, which followed, had turned sour.
After trialling Ellis Remy and Rory May, it became clear that we needed an option up front, and in August 2003, we got the sort of striker we needed. We didn’t know it at the time, of course, at the time, it was just another solution to the striking problem.
It took him just three games to register his first goal as we went down 2-1at Gigg Lane, but it became apparent very quickly that this wasn’t just another ten-game wonder rocking up at the Bank. He was quick but had a footballing brain that often belied his status as a League Two player. Anyone who watched him play in the first season would have predicted he would go on to play top-flight football.
We went to Leyton Orient and in a virtuoso display, he scored a superb brace to give us a 2-1 win. As we romped to the play-off semi-finals against Huddersfield, he hit 19 goals, and in truth, I think that 2004/05 team was one of the finest I’ve ever seen in Lincoln City shirts.
The following season, he started with a bang, netting in the first five consecutive games, which equalled a club record. Injuries curtailed that run, and he eventually went on to score a handful more through the season as we looked like genuine title contenders. His performances culminated in a 2-0 March win on Sky TV, which really put us into the automatic promotion frame.
However, a further six league games without a goal, and the semi-final and final goal-less as well, cost us our best chance of promotion under Keith Alexander, and rumours in Cardiff suggested he’d already agreed a pre-contract with Huddersfield. Either way, his contract wasn’t renewed and sure enough, he moved to West Yorkshire.
He joined Huddersfield Town on a free in June 2005, hit a League Cup hat-trick against Chesterfield, and spent the autumn competing with Paweł Abbott and Andy Booth for starts. He twice came off the bench in late December to score last-minute equalisers against Rotherham United and Barnsley. Peter Jackson later used him on the right wing, where he supplied a large share of Town’s goals in 2006–07.
He scored the Football League’s 500,000th goal with a 25-yard drive in a 3–0 win over Rotherham on 8 August 2006, and he had already netted at Stamford Bridge in January 2006 to briefly level an FA Cup tie against Chelsea. He added further key strikes against Barnsley and AFC Bournemouth, then scored Town’s only goal in the play-off first leg at Oakwell.
He moved to Blackpool on 9 July 2007, scored on big occasions, and was central to their rise. The highlights included the winner at Birmingham City in September 2008, a brace in a 3–0 win at Middlesbrough in December 2009, a goal in the 2010 Championship play-off final against Cardiff City, Blackpool’s first Premier League goal at Wigan on 14 August 2010, and the opening goal of the entire 2011–12 Football League season at Hull City.
After leaving in 2013, he joined Leicester City, scoring three times in a promotion campaign before loans at Sheffield Wednesday and Millwall. He later played for Tranmere Rovers, Accrington Stanley and Bangor City, had spells with Llandudno, and moved into management at Bangor and then Nantwich Town. He took a coaching role with the NCE in New York in 2020, became joint manager at Nantwich in 2022, departed in 2023, and was appointed manager of AFC Crewe on 23 March 2023.
He’s 25th on the list of post-war prolific Lincoln City strikers.