This is the start of my ten-day countdown to the start of the season, looking at some of the opening days from years gone by.
This is the first, the tenth best in my view. It was a game I remember clearly, the first I’d taken girls to (how exciting). We sat in the Stacey West, and I was eager for the Imps, under new manager Sam Ellis, to put on a show.
It wasn’t just the first game of the season, it was a declaration of intent. Ellis’ Imps, freshly reassembled and full of promise, dismantled a relegated Exeter City side at Sincil Bank in a performance as convincing as any opening day has seen in red and white.
After a couple of miserable campaigns that had seen Sincil Bank soaked in disappointment more often than not, this felt different. Hope often walks hand in hand with August, but this time it wasn’t blind optimism, it was backed up by football of real purpose, precision, and power.
There was a neat symmetry in Sam Ellis returning to the club where he’d once played. Now in the dugout, he couldn’t have imagined a more satisfying debut as Lincoln boss. His team, featuring five summer recruits, settled quicker, passed with confidence, and looked far sharper than their opponents from the off.
The new faces made an instant impact. Up front, Tony Daws ran the Exeter defence ragged with clever movement and blistering pace, while Phil Daley, the big physical presence signed to give City a battering ram, came agonisingly close on three occasions. One thumping volley zipped inches wide, another header clattered against the post, and a third effort was hacked off the line. On another day, Daley might have had a hat-trick by half-time.
But it was Daws who gave Lincoln the lead in the 31st minute, latching onto a clever square ball from the influential Udo Onwere before drilling a low shot in off the upright. The finish, like much of Lincoln’s play that day, was precise and ruthless.
Nine minutes later, Daws was again at the heart of the action, clattered from behind by a wild John Richardson lunge inside the area. The referee pointed to the spot without hesitation. Up stepped David Johnson, who calmly stroked the penalty into the top corner to make it 2–0. Richardson was lucky to escape with only conceding a goal. Daws was stretchered off moments later, his contribution cut short by the sort of tackle that belonged to another era.
If the goals stole the headlines, the midfield carved the narrative. Onwere, alongside Dean West and fellow new recruit Trevor Hebberd, gave City control, creativity, and bite. West’s rising drive that cannoned off the bar was the pick of several near-misses, but it was his energy and timing in the middle that really impressed.
Onwere, signed from Fulham, had the aura of a player destined to lead the Imps through the campaign. His vision and confidence on the ball stood out like a lighthouse in the fog of lower league scrappiness. He did, however, blot his copybook with a second yellow card late in the day, needless and avoidable, it soured what was otherwise a magnificent debut.
Defensively, Lincoln were largely untroubled. Exeter’s best moment came within 90 seconds of kick-off when Robbie Turner’s fierce volley forced on-loan ‘keeper Russell Hoult into a fingertip save. It was a crucial intervention; had that gone in, perhaps the narrative would have shifted. But it didn’t, and from that point, Lincoln rarely looked like conceding.
Hoult, deputising between the sticks, exuded calm. He wasn’t overworked, but when called upon, he handled crosses, set-pieces and rare Exeter efforts with aplomb.
By full-time, the crowd at Sincil Bank thought they’d seen something special. After years of opening-day damp squibs and the slow decline of form at home, here was a performance to make the faithful believe.
I went home relatively happy, after all, my attempt to impress the girls had seen a 2-0 win. I took them again, Crystal Palace sticks in my mind, but my bet is they don’t remember. I do. For that one sun-kissed Saturday at Sincil Bank, the future felt bright.