Wins, relegation, mistakes and an Aston Villa goalkeeper

An indepth look at Steve Tilson's time in charge of Lincoln City, looking at the impressive winning run of 6 wins in 7 games, the 9 defeats in 10 games that eventually resulted in relegation, and much more.

It's late September 2009 and Chris Sutton quits as Lincoln City manager after exactly 12 months in charge. Many names throw their names into the hat but the job eventually goes to Steve Tilson, a popular choice amongst Lincoln fans following on from how he transformed Southend from a lower-midtable League Two side to one who were in the Championship and beat Manchester United in the Carling Cup.

The squad that Steve Tilson inherited was already in a relegation battle, and is widely regarde as one of the worst line ups to ever represent the Imps. In that squad he had goalshy strikers Drewe Broughton (how unlucky is Tilson to have managed two Football League clubs and both have Broughton there when he took over), Delroy Facey, Andy Hutchinson and Ben Hutchinson, as well as a midfield that contained the rarely motivate Albert Jarrett, the hot and cold Mustapha Carayol, Scott "clap clap clap" Kerr and numerous others, and final a defence and goalkeeper who were conceding on a regular basis.

If Tilson was under an illusion when he took over the Imps then it was definitely lifted in the first game after he was appointed as manager. He sat in the stand as the Imps lost 2-0 at Shrewsbury before a 0-0 draw with Stockport at home. After a decent chance to gauge his squad, he bought in some new players on loan, to be more precise Ashley Grimes from Millwall, Luke Howell from MK Dons, Josh Gowling from Gillingham and Gavin Hoyte from Arsenal. The new players helped inspire the Imps to an excellent draw at Wycombe, a game where the Imps came from behind twice to snatch a well earnt draw.

Two unconvincing displays followed against Northampton and Nuneaton before his first taste of victory as Imps manager. After an awful start in which the Imps conceded in the first few minutes, Moses Swaibu popped up with an equaliser before Ashley Grimes (left) managed to contribute for the first time in an Imps shirt after a few games of not really doing anything. 

One league win soon became two as the Imps put in a very convincing display against Hereford as rare goals from Hutchison and Facey, combined with a good solo effort from Carayol, saw the Imps win 3-1. A few days later and with the Imps in a very confident mood, Bury brought the fans very much back down to earth as they destroyed City at Sincil Bank, running out 5-0 victors. It was a sign of things to come.

An unexpected month off followed due to the weather and when football returned, the Imps were well and truly back to where they had started as four defeats immediately after the turn of the year left the Imps out of the FA Cup and bottom of the league. The only optimism amongst fans was coming from the fact that a lot of teams had still managed to get the odd game in here and there along the way, meaning the Imps had up to five games in hand on many teams.

Tilson soon got rid of a few players following the bad run, and dropped goalkeeper Joe Anyon, replacing him with Trevor Carson from Sunderland. This overhaul of the squad resulted in an excellent run that started with a 4-3 win at Stockport, with Ashley Grimes scoring a hatrick. Three days later saw the Imps get an extremely rare win at Cheltenham and the good form continued with a late, late win over Port Vale.

Despite some fans claiming that what happened afterwards wouldn't have happened if Scott Kerr had stayed at the club, the Imps actually won the first two games after he left, beating Bradford 2-1 and Hereford 1-0. The run ended with a 5-1 defeat at home to Shrewsbury, however, a 2-0 win over Morecambe left City in the relatively lofty position of 13th with 37 points, nine points clear of the bottom two. Then it came......

MISTAKE NUMBER 1 : With many Imps now feeling that we were safe, Steve Tilson agreed and already started planning for the 2011/12 season, telling the players that he didn't want to keep that they wouldn't be kept on. Although this didn't seem a problem at the time, hindsight is a wonderful thing.

The form turned relatively mixed and City were generally inconsistent, but a 2-1 win over Tilson's former side Southend left City 15th in the table and 11 points clear of Barnet in 23rd with a game in hand. A trip to Macclesfield not only saw the Imps not only concede a 93rd mnute, but also lose Delroy Facey late on. Whilst Facey wasn't great at scoring goals, he was inspirational to the rest of the players and his injury had a negative impact on the side.

A defeat at Stevenage didn't seem that out of the ordinary, however, it turned out to be the last game that Trevor Carson would play for the club as he was recalled by Sunderland and immediately loaned out to Brentford. It meant that Tilson had to find a new goalkeeper ahead of the club's end of season run.

MISTAKE NUMBER 2 : You're not safe from relegation, you have a defence that isn't great at the best of times and you've loaned your only experienced goalkeeper out to Morecambe with no recall clause, he won't be coming back for a few weeks....what to do.....Tilson's decision was to bring in Elliott Parish from Aston Villa, a young goalkeeper with precisely fuck all experience.

The Aston Villa goalkeeper received a baptism of fire as the first opponents afterwards were Rotherham United. It was Rotherham's fourth season in the division and they had won ALL of the eight meetings in all competitions since coming back down, however, City fans were relatively optimistic due to Rotherham sacking their manager a few days before hand, in theory it would be the best opportunity that the Imps would have to get at least a point over Rotherham for some time. Lincoln City 0 Rotherham United 6.

Defeats at Port Vale and Torquay followed before another thumping at home as Parrish conceded four, meaning 14 goals conceded in 4 games as Lincoln City goalkeeper, not the best record. More worryingly it was 5 defeats in a row for the Imps and other clubs were picking up results. Despite that, many people thought that a 1-1 draw at Crewe would be enough for the Imps to survive.

With a poor goalkeeper in the net, the last thing Tilson needed was an injury crisis, but that is precisely what happened. You see, the problem when you tell players that you don't need them any more is that you might just have to rely on them, and that is exactly what happened. These players knew that they had no future at the club so they had precisely no motivation to do well for the Imps.

MISTAKE NUMBER 3 : By now the club were well and truly back in the relegation battle and Joe Anyon (right) had returned from his loan spell at Morecambe so Tilson had the choice between an experienced goalkeeper who had had a dodgy spell, or an inexperienced goalkeeper who was unsuccessfully flapping anytime the ball came near him. Tilson chose the latter and that would cost us.

City lost at Bury, although that could sort of be expected as the Shakers did get promoted a few weeks later, but then came arguably the most winnable game out of the remaining three fixtures. Cheltenham had been in freefall and had gone from a promotion chasing side to one who were in the relegation battle. Tilson kept on with Parrish rather than Anyon. Lincoln 0 Cheltenham 2.

With the Imps now just two points above the relegation zone with two games to play, the club put on free coaches to the game down at Oxford and more than 800 fans made the trip. With a 60 second period the mood amongst Imps fans improved as not only did new filter through that Accrington were beating Barnet....and this happened..... 

As it stood, the Imps were safe. However, the second half came around and Parrish decided to come for a corner that he was never going to reach and the hosts equalised, eventually taking the lead. All other results meant that it was down to just the Imps and Barnet as to who would go down. 

The Imps were facing Aldershot, whereas Barnet hosted Port Vale. The maths were simply, Barnet had to win to have any chance of staying up, if they did win then due to goal difference the Imps would also have to win to avoid the drop. Both games were goalless at half time but it didn't take long in the second half for Barnet to take the lead in their game....and for the Imps to concede. City would end up losing 3-0 and despite rumours that Port Vale had hit a LATE, LATE equaliser, it wasn't to be and the Imps were relegated to the Conference.

After the initial shock, Tilson quickly got rid of the majority of the squad, infact, pretty much anyone who wasn't under contract for the following season was released, and Tilson started bringing in a brand new squad. French due Jean-Francois Christophe and Francis Laurent had both played for Tilson at Southend so he obviously knew their capabilities. Ex-Southend man Nicky Nicolau also joined the fray.

Strikers Jamie Taylor, Sam Smith and Kyle Perry (right) all joined and all of them had a record of a goal every three games in the previous season. They were joined by Alan Power and Simon Russell, the Players of the Year at Rushden and Cambridge respectively, former loanee Josh Gowling and his two former Gillingham team-mates John Nutter and Tony Sinclair.

On paper, Tilson had assembled a half decent squad.

MISTAKE 4 : Know your squad and play appropriate tactics. Although players such as Kyle Perry had a decent record at his previous club and didn't start the new season awfully (3 goals in 4), you've got to play for their strengths. Perry is one of those strikers who will always thrive for long ball teams due to his heights. If you're going to have your attack spearheaded by a tall, burly striker, then you have to play tactics that suit them.

Despite a relatively welcome 2-2 draw at Southport on the first day (it was nice not to lose), the Imps equalled a record for most home defeats in a row with six after defeats to Kidderminster and Wrexham. A few days later the Imps finally recorded a victory as they beat Telford 2-1. However, following that was a run of five games without a win, four of which were defeats and to teams like Braintree and Kettering, who the Imps fans were expecting wins against.

Bizarrely, despite losing to Darlington and Kettering, both of whom went down, the Imps then beat top fo the table Gateshead thanks to a Fuseini goal. A draw against Forest Green Rovers and a defeat to Barrow were followed by a routine home win over eventually relegated Bath, however, it would be the last time that Tilson would manage the Imps at Sincil Bank.

One week later the Imps travelled to Tamworth and they were battered by the Lambs 4-0. I was not a happy camper and for the first time voiced by displeasure over Tilson's management....

A few days after I posted that, Tilson was sacked, leaving the Imps 19th in the Conference table.

Tilson stayed out of football for the remainder of the season before being appointed as manager of Canvey Island. He would only last for a year there though, leaving by mutual conesent a few months ago.

Below is his overall record as a manager (via Wikipedia)

Team	Nat	From	To	Record
				G	W	D	L	Win %
Southend United	England	20 November 2003	4 July 2010	358	142	88	128	39.66
Lincoln City	England	15 October 2010	10 October 2011	51	14	10	27	27.45
Canvey Island	England	12 July 2012	July 2013	42	18	10	14	42.86
Total				451	174	108	169	38.58