Tomorrow, I begin a ten day countdown to the start of the season, with my favourite opening days as a Lincoln City fan.
It’s going to be one per day, like a special pre-season advent calendar of sorts. However, I’m a light and dark man, and I think it’s important to remember the rubbish opening days as well. For every win, there is a loss, for every optimistic start, a realisation that we’re just relegation fodder.
I’m only going to include matches from my lifetime as a City fan, so opening days from 1987 onwards are fair game. While you’ll get a good 1,000 words on each of the good ones, here is a snippet of those terrible opening day fixtures we really should just forget.
If only I’d let you.
10 – 1993 Colchester United (A), 0-1
We started the 1992/23 season with a defeat at Colchester, and fate threw us a curveball by giving us the exact same opening fixture a year later. This time, Keith Alexander was in charge of a new-look Imps, hoping to reinvent themselves as a passing side.
As we had a year before, we slipped to a miserable defeat, never got into the game, and got off on the wrong foot. we finished 18th, Colchester finished 17th.
9 – 1997 Chester City (A), 0-2
After the thrilling 1996/97 season, where the likes of Man City and Southampton were visitors at the Bank, hopes were high. John Beck’s side had narrowly missed out on the play-offs, but had a tricky trip to Chester on the opening day.
David Flitcroft, later to become something of a nemesis as Mansfield boss, scored one and created another in the final 16 minutes as we slipped to a 2-0 defeat. We had the last laugh – we finished third and were promoted, but Chester languished in 14th.