First things first, it is remarkable that this match took place 30 years ago. When, as a child, the grown-ups said stuff like ‘blink, and you’ll miss it’, they weren’t lying.
At eight years old, I was unaware of it, but I was living the dream in terms of young footballing life. We were just a matter of weeks away from starting matches for my local team, an under-9s friendly season, and this weekend alone was to be something unreal.
The previous May, I was at Wembley for the FA Cup final between Manchester United and Liverpool. A classic it was not, but Eric Cantona had settled it with an astute volley after David James had failed to deal with a David Beckham corner.
That’s not to mention the most glorious of glorious failures, Euro 96. A tournament that was illuminated by special moments but ultimately ended in heartbreak, with England a Paul Gascoigne toe-nail (and a better penalty) away from making the final.
Now, here I was on a Friday night in the school holidays, about to watch the world record signing Alan Shearer take to the field for the first time in the colours of his boyhood club.
£15 million! An unreal sum of money three decades ago. Ronaldo, R9, had moved to Barcelona from PSV Eindhoven for £13.2 million, only for the England striker to break that record in his move from Blackburn Rovers.
But that wasn’t all, two days later we were due at Wembley again for the Charity Shield between Manchester United and Shearer’s Magpies.
Recently, my dad handed me a box full of programmes from the 1990s, much to the delight of my partner! In it was the programme from this match, complete with signatures of Warren Barton, Peter Beardsley and the Great Britain Olympic swimmer Paul Palmer.
The Match Itself
To be truthful, and in my defence, the contest was 30 years ago, and I don’t remember an awful lot about the match. I do remember the world’s most expensive player slotting home a penalty for his first goal for his new club. From memory, I’m sure his right-footed effort was slotted home to his left as he sent Barry Richardson the wrong way.
Sincil Bank was packed to the rafters, over 10,000 squeezing into the wonderful old ground. Keegan showed the class act he is, bringing a first-team squad to the Bank, including Shearer, as part of the Darren Huckerby deal that saw the City youngster head to St James’ Park in a deal potentially worth £500,000.
The Geordies had just had a 12-point lead pegged back by Manchester United just three months before, eventually finishing four points behind Feegie’s reds.
Shearer was joined by the likes of Philippe Albert and Shaka Hislop for this pre-season warm-up, with the former completing a full 90 minutes ahead of the Charity Shield clash with the side he reportedly turned down twice.
The Imps created little, but that was to be expected against ‘Keegan’s £50 Million Dream Squad’, as the office programme so eloquently put it!
The Opposition
Keegan’s £50 Million Dream Squad was made up of, aside from the obvious, the £7.5 million signing Faustino Asprilla, £6.5 million man Lea Ferdinand and David Batty, a relative snip at £3.5 million.
The mercurial Frenchman David Ginola joined the club from Paris Saint-Germain in 1995 and added to the threat provided by Peter Beardsley, who was enjoying his second spell with the club.
The Entertainers, as they had been christened, would finish the upcoming season in second place behind Manchester United, this time by a margin of seven points.
Keegan would resign five months after this friendly, to be replaced by Kenny Dalglish. The Magpies would only manage a 13th-place finish in the 1997-98 season and wouldn’t go near mounting a title challenge again.
As For The Imps…
Lincoln had struggled for several years, with an 8th-place finish under Steve Thompson in 1993 being the highest finish since promotion back to the Football League in 1988. They had been a couple of 18th-place finishes thrown in, just to keep supporters on the edge.
In his programme notes from the night, City boss John Beck claims his ‘campaign for rebuilding Lincoln City’ started with the sale of Huckerby to the Premier League big boys.
Part of his rebuilding included the summer acquisitions of Kevin Austin, Mark Hone and Worrell Sterling, among others.
Austin, who would fast become this 8-year-old wannabe defender’s favourite player, was a £30,000 signing from Leyton Orient through Beck’s ‘Buy a Player’ appeal- presumably the Huckerby money remained untouched.
The manager also claimed in his notes that ‘we are still six months away from being the required fitness level’ – this sounds remarkable when this match was on August 9th, days away from the new campaign.
However, the wily Beck wasn’t talking about the next season; he was looking far further ahead than that. He continues, ‘that will stand us in good stead for the 2-3 year campaign that will take us through the leagues.’
Looking back at this comment 30 years on, knowing what happened, I’m not really sure what to make of it! What did ‘through the leagues’ mean? Surely he hadn’t set his sights on playing teams like Newcastle weekly? Did he plan on signing a £15 million world-class striker of his own?
Unlikely, but still a remarkable comment. Though, in his defence, he did guide the Imps to 9th in the 1996-97 campaign and, let’s be honest, it was his side that won promotion the following season, albeit without him in charge.
The former Preston boss did, of course, have a history of guiding teams through the divisions. He had guided Cambridge United from the old Fourth Division to the cusp of the newly formed Premier League in two seasons, only missing out in the playoffs to Leicester City.
So, perhaps he saw something or could feel something building. As I mentioned, the squad that went up was the one he had manufactured, only to be relieved of his duties for truly bizarre reasons.
Officially, he was sacked after taking an unauthorised holiday during the season. However, that came on top of an arrest at 2.55 pm on a Saturday for his alleged involvement in buying and selling whiskey, without the taxman knowing about it. Something about it being imported into the UK to sell in Europe, thus avoiding tax.
‘Johnny Beck’s Dodgy Whiskey!’- a chant I can still hear this day. Mental, yet wonderful stuff.
Anyway, City were promoted to Division 2, had a famous victory (again) over Manchester City, but were ultimately not good enough for the level and were relegated back to the basement division. Oh, and the chairman became manager for a bit!