McCombe joins Bristol City

By Marcus Evans
May 25 2006

Fan favourite, Jamie McCombe has left the Imps to join League One side, Bristol City for an undisclosed fee. After Crewe officially announced their interest, Bristol City came in at the 11th hour and secured the signature of easily the best player at Sincil Bank during the 2005/6 season.

Bristol City have been "there or there abouts" in League One for the last few years and made the playoff final a few seasons ago against Brighton and Hove Albion but lost out thanks to a Leon Knight penalty. They are early favourites to secure the League One title next season under Gary Johnson and Jamie McCombe appears to be the former Yeovil manager's missing piece to the puzzle. McCombe's move was motivated by the fact that City failed to win promotion via the playoffs. It was McCombe's 4th straight failure in the end of season lottery, he failed with Scunthorpe as they lost out to the Imps in the 2002/3 semi finals. McCombe soon moved to the Imps and lost to Huddersfield, Southend and Grimsby in consecutive years and just like Keith Alexander, felt it was time to move on.

Speaking to the Robin's official website, the 6'6 centre back said "This move is a fantastic opportunity for me. City are a big club with bags of potential and I feel it is the right step for me at this stage in my career. I'm aware of the talen the club already has in the squad and I can guarantee City supporters I will be giving it 100%  to win a regular place in the side."

McCombe joined the Imps in March 2004 and his debut was a 4-1 home win over Mansfield but his early time at Sincil Bank saw him come in for heavy critisism as he was put up front and the fickle Lincoln fans couldn't understand that defenders aren't put up front for a reason. However, despite this critisism, he scored 8 goals for the club in 101 appearances.

We wish Jamie all the best in Bristol and hopefully, he'll be back at Sincil Bank in 2007/8, representing Bristol City in a League One match.