By Nathan Jackson
May 8 2007

Lincoln City will play their 11th playoff game on Saturday afternoon, setting a new Football League record along the way for the most consecutive playoff campaigns. The previous 10 games have seen the full range of emotions and it's amazing how many random facts have come out of those 10 games.

GAMES PLAYED BY EACH CITY PLAYER
PLAYER	GAMES	GOALS
Alan Marriott	10	0
Simon Yeo	10	3
Richard Butcher	8	1
Ben Futcher	8	1
Peter Gain	8	0
Paul Morgan	8	0
Jamie McCombe	7	0
Mark Bailey	5	2
Matthew Bloomer	5	0
Francis Green	5	0
Gareth McAuley	5	2
Gary Taylor-Fletcher	5	1
Lee Beevers	4	0
Paul Mayo	4	1
Simon Weaver	4	1
Stuart Bimson	3	0
Dean Cropper	3	0
Paul Smith	3	1
Kevin Sandwith	3	0
Derek Asamoah	2	0
Nat Brown	2	0
Kevin Ellison	2	0
Jamie Forrester	2	0
Lee Frecklington	2	0
Jeff Hughes	2	0
Scott Kerr	2	0
Marcus Richardson	2	0
Marvin Robinson	2	1
Scott Willis	2	0
Gary Birch	1	0
Chris Cornelly	1	0
Aaron Wilford	1	0

Jamie McCombe, Mark Bailey and Ben Futcher have played both for and against City in the playoffs. Ben Futcher is also the only player who has scored both for and against the Imps in the playoffs. Nat Brown has played in the playoffs for the Imps, and although he was in the squad to face City for Huddersfield, he didn’t get off the bench. Martin Carruthers and Junior Mendes have both played in the playoffs against City before joining the Imps, neither featured in the Playoffs for City though.

 

Only once has a City player scored twice in a Playoff match and that was Simon Yeo against Scunthorpe in 2002/3. Only two players have scored twice in a Playoff Match against the Imps, one was Scunthorpe’s Alex Calvo-Garcia and Bournemouth’s Carl Fletcher.

 

In City’s 4 playoff campaigns, 3 players have scored in both legs of the semi finals. Simon Yeo scored in both games against Scunthorpe in the 2002/3, Gareth McAuley against Macclesfield in 2004/5 and Gary Jones for Grimsby against City in 2005/6.

 

Lincoln City are the only side 4th tier side to have lost 2 playoff finals at the Millennium Stadium (left). They join a small handful of clubs to have never won there having played more than once.

Macclesfield at home was the only playoff game where City didn’t make a single substitution.

 

Over the 4 previous playoff campaigns, City have always scored the first goal in the leg played away from Sincil Bank. However, City have failed to win on 3 of those 4 occasions.

 

In the playoff finals that the Imps have faced, the opposition both had goalless draws in their away leg of the semi finals. Bournemouth had a goalless draw at Bury before beating them 3-1 at the Fitness First Stadium, whereas Southend held Northampton to a stalemate before a penalty (what else) won the game for Southend.

 

In the 10 playoff games, the Imps have had a total of 6 goals disallowed. 2 in the home game against Scunthorpe and another in the away leg. Simon Yeo’s effort against Southend that was later proved to have been an incorrect decision, and the two disallowed in the home leg to Grimsby last season.

Out of those disallowed goals, Richard Butcher “scored” two of them, Paul Mayo, Simon Yeo, Jamie McCombe and Marvin Robinson were the others to have a goal disallowed.

If Lincoln City do reach the Playoff Final, they will be the first ever side outside of the Premiership to play at both new version of Wembley (right) and the Millennium Stadium. 

If you take the attendances in the 2 playoff finals involving the Imps and round off to the nearest thousand in both. Then round the fans taken by each team to the nearest 1000, Bournemouth had 57.57% of the crowd in 2003, but the Imps outnumbered Southend by over 2 to 1, taking up 68.24% in 2005. As mentioned, each attendance figure was rounded to the nearest 1000 so percentages aren’t specific.

 

City have one of the worst records in the playoffs, winning just 3 of the 10 matches played. They are a fair way ahead of Hartlepool though, the Pool winning just one of their 11 playoff games.

 

As you can see from the table, Alan Marriott and Simon Yeo are the only two players to have played in every single playoff game for the Imps, Marriott being the only one of the two to play every single minute of those games.

 

Out of the 14 goals scored in the playoffs for the Imps, exactly half were scored by defenders, only 2 goals were scored by midfielders with the remaining 5 being scored by the strikers.

 

Out of the 18 goals scored against the Imps in the playoffs only three were scored by strikers, Steve Fletcher (Bournemouth), Iffy Onoura (Huddersfield) and Freddy Eastwood (Southend). 7 goals were scored by the following midfielders, Alex Calvo-Garcia (Scunthorpe – twice), Gareth O’Connor (Bournemouth), Danny Schofield (Huddersfield), Paul Harsley (Macclesfield) and Gary Jones (Grimsby – twice).

 

Whilst the other 9 were scored by defenders, Nathan Stanton (Scunthorpe), Carl Fletcher (Bournemouth – twice), Stephen Purches (Bournemouth), Paul Mirfin and Rob Edwards (both Huddersfield), Nicky Nicolau (Southend) and Ben Futcher (Grimsby).