By Nathan Jackson
February 7 2007

Lincoln City head into Saturday's game against Torquay remembering a certain game at the end of the now famous 2002/3 season. That was a game where City just had to avoid defeat to guarantee the playoffs, now City have to win to maintain a decent push for automatic promotion, haven't times changed?

It's hard to think that a home game against Torquay could lead to so many different emotions. A game that would lead to memorable games and titanic performances. A game that would eventually lead to the club becoming what it is today. 4 and a half years ago, this football club was close to dying, 12 months later and one swung of a left foot changed everything. It seems almost ironic looking back at it now to consider that one of our current players almost denied everything that happened in those four years. I wonder how different things would have been if it hadn't been for the final game of the regular season back in 2002/3.

I remember that games as if it were yesterday. It was 86 minutes of City not performing, and me throwing several obsenaties in the direction of Simon Yeo, a striker who hadn't performed at all in the 2002/3 season, but then a punt upfield from Richard Butcher saw the former postman volley the ball into the back of the net, with a slight deflection off of Ruben Hazell's shoulder to help it out. It was a moment that brought about what have to this day, been my only tears whilst watching Lincoln City (although the performance against Southend in the Playoffs a few years back came close).

Who'd have thought back then that the club were on the verge of 4 playoff campaigns in a row, one after another turning less and less convincing than that last. Whether it was that 8 goal bonanza against Scunthorpe, that goal at Glanford Park, sitting with roughly 14,000 other Imps supporters (well, I say supporters....) in one of the best stadiums the British isles have to offer. What a great couple of weeks those were, and I would give anything to go back to those days.

In the past 3 years however, City have produced a fair bit of rubbish in the playoffs. Whether it was the lacklusture showing against Huddersfield at home, to nearly allowing Macclesfield to draw level after City had battered them, to watch Simon Yeo have a perfectly good goal disallowed, only to see Southend then score with their only two shots on target, and not to forget the two poor performances against Grimsby last year. It's funny how something you used to love, is something you've become desperate to avoid.

However, the reality is that City are currently looking at another playoff campaign unless performances drastically improve on recent weeks. 2007 so far has been everything that City do worst. The flowing football from the beginning of the season has disappeared and has been replaced by the type of football our previous manager liked to employ. Many feel that if we don't get a win against Torquay, then it'll be the playoffs at best for City even though we'll still only be a small handful worth of points behind the automatic promotion places.

City's task was not made any easier by Jamie Forrester's sending off at Notts County last week, however that does mean that one of the bench-warmers now has a chance to come in and stake a claim at a regular first team place. Most likely to take his place is Spencer Weir-Daley, who hasn't had a bad start to his City career, playing about 50 minutes in total for the club and finding the net twice. The only other challenger to the position is Dany N'Guessan who has looked fairly impressive in his opening two games for City.

Other than that, there probably won't be any changes to the 11 that started against Notts County. Meaning Marriott in goal, with Mayo and Beevers on either side of the partnership of Brown and Moses in central defence. With Owain Warlow impressing the coaching staff recently, he might get a chance in the place of Jeff Hughes, although it is still likely the Northern Irishman will find himself on the left side of a midfield that also contains Scott Kerr, Lee Frecklington, and Ryan Amoo. Mark Stallard is the only striker who will almost certainly start, whilst the final position is up for debate.

City however have a far from easy task on their hands as Torquay are slowing starting to improve, only losing twice in their last 5 games, and whilst the teams above them are all struggling for points to get away from each other, Torquay are very slowly catching up and just two wins would take them up to 20th (obviously depending on other results and goal difference). However, worrying for Torquay they've let in 5 on both their last away trips, both of which were in this area of the Country, at Notts County and Mansfield.

Torquay's away form is pitiful, with just two aways all season, the last of which was a 1-0 win at Bury on September 9th. Since then they've picked up just 2 points on the road, now that's a bad run by anyone's standards. It seems a long time ago since they were 5th in the table, with the chance of going top if they've beaten the Imps in the second week of the season, we have Paul Morgan and Martin Gritton to thank for probably the most over-enthusiastic celebration from the fans this year. That result probably set the Imps season up, and had we lost that game we could not even be talking about still being in the automatic promotion race.

Torquay's main problem has been not having a reliable goal source, failing to score in 15 games out of 31 speaks for itself, especially weighed up against just 6 cleans sheets (then again, City have only managed 8). Youngster Jamie Ward had a relatively impressive 10 league goals for Torquay, he has since gone to Chesterfield though. Torquay's next highest goalscorer is Jordan Robertson who has a dismal 4 goals, then our beloved Lee Thorpe, coupled with Lee Mansell has 3 goals.

It's a game that both sides have to win for differing reasons, but who would bet against both sides still being in this division next year???