Welling: 13th October 2015. | Vital Football

Welling: 13th October 2015.

berksimps

Vital Football Hero
Just chatting about some of the worst league games we have attended in recent years. This game, on a Tuesday night at Welling has to be right up there.

A dire trip round the M25 saw us arrive just before the start having parked outside a chip shop on the main road. Two guys were moaning about Alan Power before the teams came out, they only stopped after 30 minutes when other fans on the same row cheered each time he got the ball.

A dire, turgid game saw us lose 2-1 after Bradley Wood was sent off. A dreadful shared ground, dreadful facilities, dreadful result, and a dreadful trip home.

Total attendence 702. (Imps circa 100). Only Rheady now remains from that side.

Not that long ago, but how times have changed. There were other league losses that season and of course Whitehawk was just around the corner, but those were desperate times, when at every away game you questioned what the hell you were doing there.

Puts things in perspective.
 
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We lost 1-0 at Welling a couple of years earlier which was terrible too. I'd totally forgotten about that until your post. Surprisingly a midfield including Todd Jordan and Bohan Dixon wasn't very good.

These are the games to try and think back to when you get frustrated about drawing at home with Cambridge or Carlisle.
 
We lost 1-0 at Welling a couple of years earlier which was terrible too. I'd totally forgotten about that until your post. Surprisingly a midfield including Todd Jordan and Bohan Dixon wasn't very good.

These are the games to try and think back to when you get frustrated about drawing at home with Cambridge or Carlisle.

Excellent final point!
 
Hawkridge played well that night, and Power gave away the ball cheaply for their winner. Weren’t we quite high in the table at that point... just imagine if we had finished in the top ten, moyses might still be with us.
 
I was there. Awful game in the arse end of London. Got chatting to a few Millwall fans who couldn’t believe how bad we were. Decent bar/clubhouse from what I can remember.
 
We must never forget how fortunate we are to be playing Crawley, Morecambe and the rest. I never thought I would see League football at Sincil Bank again and was actually waiting for the announcement that we were going part-time.

Bob was adamant it would never happen, but I wonder exactly how close we came?
 
And the Lizards won there to create football karma. I once ran the line there - a certain Howard Webb was ref. I seem to remember them going mad about his expenses from Rotherham
 
We beat them 4-1 in 87-88 though. Cracking performance that day!

I cant' comment on the OP game because, as a plastic, I was only keeping tabs on results by that time, but the away game at Welling some time during the second half of the GMVC season was one of my favourite away days.

Due to a meeting point snafu we were incredibly late setting off and I'm amazed we arrived well in time. Seemed like quite a nice area to me. It was the first game in many, many years I can remember where there was absolutely no fan segregation so everyone stood where they liked.

The first blokes we spoke to were Millwall fans who watched Welling when they were away, which caused a few palpitations, but the Imps won well and a tannoy announcement that day has always stuck in my mind

"Will the Lincoln fans in the main stand please stop trying to dismantle it"
 
We must never forget how fortunate we are to be playing Crawley, Morecambe and the rest. I never thought I would see League football at Sincil Bank again and was actually waiting for the announcement that we were going part-time.

Bob was adamant it would never happen, but I wonder exactly how close we came?
It depends what you call Part Time. It was known under Gary Simpson the players were often only training 2 days a week and Bob had closed the Stacey West down for the season to save wages on turnstile attendants. . We were employing players on 1 year x 40 week contracts as the preferred choice, so that we didn't have to pay them during the summer, meaning if they were any good they could just walk and find a better club. Weren't many players being paid more than £600 a week. Lincoln City were like a charity in the city where people would try and raise money for to keep it going.
We were as bare minimum a professional football club as you could get.
I was also at that Welling game and also the Lizards.
 
We lost 1-0 at Welling a couple of years earlier which was terrible too. I'd totally forgotten about that until your post. Surprisingly a midfield including Todd Jordan and Bohan Dixon wasn't very good.

These are the games to try and think back to when you get frustrated about drawing at home with Cambridge or Carlisle.

I was at both of those dreadful matches. The first one we were totally devoid of ideas and simply hoofed the ball up field once we went behind but Bush won everything in the air for them and I don’t think we would have scored if we were still playing now.

At least we were better in the 2nd defeat until we self destructed. Hopefully, we never ever have to go there again. Dismal days indeed.
 
"Surprisingly a midfield including Todd Jordan and Bohan Dixon wasn't very good."

*Shudder*

I suppose Jordan was at least a trier, but there's almost nothing good you can say about that combination.
 
It depends what you call Part Time. It was known under Gary Simpson the players were often only training 2 days a week and Bob had closed the Stacey West down for the season to save wages on turnstile attendants. . We were employing players on 1 year x 40 week contracts as the preferred choice, so that we didn't have to pay them during the summer, meaning if they were any good they could just walk and find a better club. Weren't many players being paid more than £600 a week. Lincoln City were like a charity in the city where people would try and raise money for to keep it going.
We were as bare minimum a professional football club as you could get.

"It was known under Gary Simpson..." Known by whom, exactly? No one has ever mentioned that to me, not the players of the time, not even Simpson himself. Why on earth would they employ professional players and not have them training? I would be interested to know where you got that.

40-week contracts are the norm in non-league football. It makes perfect sense to do that, as you never really know what you are getting. Remember Karl Ledsham? No, you probably don't. However, a number of Gary Simpson's players were either signed on or converted to two-year deals including Alan Power, Paul Farman, Tony Diagne, Sean Newton and Ben Tomlinson. Whatever we may think of Simpson tactically, he was actually quite smart in the transfer market and used loans and short-term deals well:

2-year deals: 5
1-year deals: 12
Loans: 10
Non-contract: 2
Short-term: 4

The SW was closed to save £10,000 per season in costs - with an average gate of 2,500 and an average away attendance of 70 (excluding Grimsby), it made perfect sense. What has that got to do with going part-time?
 
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The SW was closed to save £10,000 per season in costs - with an average gate of 2,500 and an average away attendance of 70 (excluding Grimsby), it made perfect sense. What has that got to do with going part-time?
Because it's one of the cost savings that helped prevent us going part time. Basically things like that and the amount of effort gone back into building up the club since we got back in the league show that the club was only just clinging on to keeping professional.
 
Think I've read before that the average wage for the players was around £600 a week in the Holdsworth/Simpson eras.
2015/16 think the wages went up a bit hence getting the likes of Hearn and Rhead.
Definitely went up in 2016/17.
 
And the Lizards won there to create football karma. I once ran the line there - a certain Howard Webb was ref. I seem to remember them going mad about his expenses from Rotherham

I seem to remember when the lizards played them we kept seeing parrots flying over? Or some exotic birds that must of escaped there cages anyway.
 
Think I've read before that the average wage for the players was around £600 a week in the Holdsworth/Simpson eras.
2015/16 think the wages went up a bit hence getting the likes of Hearn and Rhead.
Definitely went up in 2016/17.
Danny's budget in 2016-17 was actually lower than Moyses had in 2015-16.
 
The Carshalton home 0-0 game was a tough watch. Nothing really happened for 90 minutes.

The Carshalton 3-1 away was worse. I stayed until Sheridan's late curler but I can't tell you why.

I think the days following that defeat were the most disillusioned in Lincoln I have ever been. Worse than the relegation. Worse than the 4-0 thumping at home to Ferriby.