By Nathan Jackson
December 28 2010

Whilst Wayne Rooney, John Terry, Frank Lampard and the rest of those overpaid players in an England shirt were proviing they're not world-class in South Africa, the Imps were slowly going about their business in the pre-season, including signing several players and having a characteristically poor run of results in friendlies.

June is often a slow month for football, there are no matches for your football team, although occasional there is a national tournament, but the less we speak about England’s World Cup campaign, the better. Going from one set of strikers that can’t hit a barn door, it brings us neatly round to Lincoln’s next signing, Drewe Broughton.

Broughton had played for the Imps on loan during the 2009/10 season and failed to make an impression, failing to get on the scoresheet. To this day he hasn’t opened his Imps account in nearly twenty games.

The biggest news of early June though was the announcement of the new Lincoln City Chairman, Bob Dorrian, the director took over from Steff Wright. It was viewed as a generally positive appointment by most as Dorrian used to stand on the Sincil Bank terraces and was a long term fan.

With the Chairman going, the Imps didn’t have to wait long for their Head of Youth and first team goalkeeper to go as well. Spall left to pursue new career options and was replaced by Grant Brown, whereas Rob Burch rejected a new Lincoln contract to join Notts County, the team who had won League Two just a few weeks earlier. Burch left almost two years to the day after being signed by Peter Jackson.

Newsworthy events were few and far between and the new fixtures dominated the middle part of the month. City found out that would travel to Rotherham on the opening day for the second season in three, whereas the Carling Cup First Round would be played at Leeds United, something Lincoln’s Scott Kerr was very pleased about as he is a Leeds fan.

In our review of February we mentioned a young player called Gavin McCallum at Hereford, on June 21^st he agreed to join the Imps after Chris Sutton had regularly scouted him after he had scored twice against the Imps for Hereford. It was viewed as a positive move given his scoring record for Hereford at the end of the 2009/10 season. It didn’t take long for another signing either as Albert Jarrett joined after being released by Barnet, for whom he had set up a goal in the game against Lincoln in January.

Chris Sutton’s links with Celtic continued as far as his former team-mate Didier Agathe, whom was now running an academy on the island of Reunion. Three young players immediately joined on trial Adifane Noussara, Uldric Samaria and Remy Lauret. All three would play during the pre-season that came up and despite being the least impressive of the three, Noussara was given a six month contract, the other two, as well as another trialist that joined at a later date, were sent back to the small island.

New signings were coming thick and fast as City quickly signed Rob Burch’s replacement, Joe Anyon (above, left). Anyon joined after being released by Port Vale, for whom he was once scouted by several Premiership teams. Chris Sutton later revealed that he only signed Anyon because of the word of Paul Musselwhite, a Port Vale legend who is a coach at Sincil Bank.

Whilst all the above had been going on, controversy was ensuing between Lincoln City and Torquay United. Mustapha Carayol (right) had agreed to join the Imps from the Gulls after his contract at Plainmoor had expired, however, Paul Buckle was far from impressed saying that because City had offered no compensation, he expected to see Carayol at pre-season training in Torquay.....although you’d be hard pushed to force a player who is out of contract to join you for training. The clubs fell out during the few months of summer before eventually going to tribunial.

All the new signings got a run out in City’s first friendly of the pre-season. Despite going behind relatively early, goals from trialist Scott Anson and Gavin McCallum gave City the lead. The game also saw the one and only game of James Ferry’s trial for the club, Anson on the other hand was given another chance, that despite his goal being the only positive contribution to the game.

Danny Hone left Sincil Bank on loan to Darlington, whereas another one of the previous season’s goal-shy loanee strikers joined permanently, this time Delroy Facey. He would be joined by his former Notts County team-mate Jamie Clapham. Neither played in the next pre-season game though as two goals from Carayol and an Anson effort gave City a 3-1 win, Drewe Broughton even missed a penalty.

Adam Watts returned to action in a 2-0 win at Bishops Stortford. He had been out of action since suffering a broken leg at Grimsby. Hughton and Andy Hutchinson got the goals. City’s 100% record in pre-season didn’t last long though as a young Imps side lost 3-2 at Sleaford. A Celtic XI visited Sincil Bank and despite the Imps taking a 1-0 lead through Jarrett, goals from Daryl Murphy, Simon Ferry and a brace from Ben Hutchinson (more on him in a later article) got the big win for Celtic. Elsewhere on the same day, trialists Remy Lauret was on target for a youth Imps side who drew with Leeds 2-2.

Another young Imps side travelled to Grantham Town, with Andy Hutchinson and Nathan Adams on target. The month ended with a creditable 0-0 draw at home to Norwich, but a 4-2 defeat to Grimsby saw City exit from the Lincolnshire Senior Cup to end the summer.

A Year in Review : June and July 2010

Discussion started by theimps.ka (IP Logged), 28/12/2010 23:57

theimps.ka
28/12/2010 23:57

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