By Nathan Jackson
February 9 2006

September 24th 2005, one of the worst days to be and Imp in recent history as City players destroyed their repuations. Just days after taking Fulham to the brink, the Imps disgraced themselves in a defeat at Torquay and only a win on Saturday will make up for what happened that afternoon.

It’s amazing how reputations can be made and lost within the space of just a few days. One day, everything is perfect and the next, your world has just collapsed. That is what happened for the Imps on one dark Saturday back in September. It is a game that seems an eternity ago, a game that the fans who were there, will not want to remember anytime soon. Less than 72 hours earlier, the Imps almost toppled a Premiership team on their own ground before a 120^th minute Brian McBride goal denying the Imps a penalty shoot out and possibly the biggest shock of the Carling Cup. That night, every single Imps player, especially Alan Marriott, came out with phrase from all quarters and it will be a night that Imps fans will still be talking about for years to come.

 

3 days later and the Imps embarked on the longest trip of the season, a fairly unattractive trip to struggling Torquay United. The Imps record against Torquay wasn’t particularly impressive but the Imps started brightly and after having a penalty appeal turned down early on, Gareth McAuley headed the Imps into the lead in the 10^th minute. After controlling the first half, Torquay got an undeserved equaliser at the beginning of the second half when Garner’s tame long range effort took a deflection off of Jamie McCombe and went past an out of position Marriott. It wasn’t long before the hosts were in the lead when Alan Connell headed in a cross 25 minutes from time.

 

However, all of City’s hard work on the previous Wednesday night became undone before long. Any slim chances of the Imps getting an equaliser (slim because Asamoah was playing) went in the 80^th minute when Lee Beevers was sent off, however, this was viewed by many as just “one of those things”, however less than 10 minutes later, Morgan and Marriott, the two most experienced Imps players, lost their heads when they realised Asamoah was playing and decided to take it out on Torquay striker Alan Connell.

 

Alan Marriott and Paul Morgan, other than being the Imps’ most experienced players, in many people’s opinions are the 2 best players for the Imps. Everything started off innocently when Morgan was trying to run the ball out of play but striker, Alan Connell snuck in front of the Imps’ captain and Morgan showed his frustrations by kicking out of Connell for no apparent reason and Morgan was shown the red card. Whereas Morgan’s sending off was just silly, Marriott had absolutely no excuse for what he did next as he ran and belted the ball towards the former Bournemouth striker. The most shocking part about Marriott being sent off was that he looked shocked that he had been sent off.

 

That concluded a miserable day for the week and what should have ended as a proud week for the club, ended up being one of the most controversial incidents of the season and the most disgustingly shocking part about the whole incident was that both Marriott and Morgan just walked straight back into the squad when their suspensions were up.

 

Oh I do like to have fun beside the seaside.