By Nathan Jackson
March 20 2005

Imps boss Keith Alexander has declared that neither Cairan Toner or Marcus Richardson will play for the Imps again. The two have been suspended for just over a month and only a major miracle would ever seen either play in an Imps shirt for the again.

Neither player has played for the Imps for 5 weeks after a training ground incident which ALLEGEDLY involved racist comments from both players and left Ciaran Toner requiring hospital treatment for a broken jaw. Richardson had not been in first team contention for quite a while but Toner, after working hard all season to get in the squad, benefitted from Gainy's injury to play excellently and get City's promotion challenege back on track, the highlight of those games coming in the away game against Grimsby where he scored City's forth, it seems such a waste now. Richardson was loaned out to Rochdale soon after the incident and returned earlier this week.

Keith has said to the Echo, "Marcus returned to us this week but I've told him, just like I've told Ciaran Toner, that they are free to leave Lincoln City. I've had to make a stand on this issue and treat them exactly the same. They are available for transfer but not to play for Lincoln. There have been enquiries about Marcus and there is still a week to go before the deadline. Ciaran has been speaking to clubs so he could also be close to a move."

Richardson overall is the biggest disappointment from this, after impressing in a loan spell from Hartlepool last season, a battle to sign him from Hartlepool finally resulted in him becoming a City player but the incident has now ruined his chances of securing a quick permanent move to Rochdale.

"Looking back I think it was the wrong time to go to Rochdale after the incident at Lincoln, I wasn't really focused and perhaps if I knew I was going to be there for longer I could have let my mind settle down quicker. Everything happened so quickly. I was at Spotland just a couple of days after the incident and I feel I was unprofessional in the way I went about things. I'm very disappointed because I never got to show Steve Parkin or the Dale fans what I could do."