By Nathan Jackson
December 27 2006

August saw the Imps start the league campaign and manage to avoid defeat, whilst two unlikely scorers sent 300 Imps mad. 18 time champions visited the bank whereas fans argue with themselves over a potential take over from ex-directors seems to bring out the worst in everyone.

August starts with a way that no-one could have predicted as former board members, Ray Trew and Keith Roe, announce that they plan to make a bid to take over the club in the form of a PLC, the news is met with a mixed reaction from City fans. Some don’t want the club to be run by a PLC, whereas others are excited by the prospect of around £1million being invested into the club. It certainly wasn’t the final time that City fans would hear about this potential take over.

The first good news (depending on your view over the LC), is that Jeff Hughes has recieved another international call up, this time for the Under 21 games against Romania and Germany. This means he will miss the friendly against Liverpool and the league game against Accrington Stanley. He is not one of the players involved as the Imps go down 3-0 at Spalding in a friendly.

All the bookmakers released their odds for the upcoming season and despite investing in some proven talent, the bookmakers aren’t impressed with City’s chances and the Imps are 3^rd favourites for relegation according to the majority. Wycombe are made title favourites. It was a major sense of deja vu as the last time City shifted managers, we were predicted for a bad season.

The deja vu continues into the first game as much like under Keith Alexander’s second reign, a defender scores City’s first game of the season as Adie Moses taps in from close range following a well worked corner from the Imps. City go on to dominating the first half and are unlucky not to extend their lead by at least 1 goal as Notts County appear to be wilting.

City continue to control the second half but then concede a free kick about 30 yards out, the ball is whipped in and takes a very slight deflection off of Jeff Hughes and sails past Marriott with Notts County’s first chance of the game. It becomes a nervy second half for the Imps but still manage to get the odd shot off, with Mark Stallard having a great chance to put the Imps back in the lead but his effort is weak and the game ends 1-1.

A few days later and the Imps are the first team to visit recently promoted Hereford United. In a game that most had expected the Imps to struggle, we race into a 2 goal lead with relative easy as Mark Stallard’s first takes a major deflection whereas his second is a cross goal header. City have many chances to extend their lead with Alan Marriott being inspirational and if it weren’t for him, the Imps would have lost by a long way.

It appears to be heading for a very comfortable victory for the Imps until Lee Beevers concedes a penalty, Rob Purdie steps up and smashes the Bulls back into the match. All of a sudden, Hereford are dominating and they think they’d equalised when Alan Connell, a player who always seems to score against the Imps, taps in from close range but he’s thankfully flagged offside. Hereford continued to press but can’t find an equaliser as Imps fans were made to sweat after what should have been a comfortable win for City.

The same night, one of City’s old players creates football league history. Gary Taylor-Fletcher scores a stunning goal for Huddersfield Town, that goals is the 500,000^th goal ever scored in the football league and is a goal that is worthy of such an accolade.

Steve Prescott leaves the club as Commercial Manager, making the sort trip down the road to Nottingham Forest to do a similar roll. Gary Birch and Tom Kemp also leave the club as they both go to Tamworth on loan.

The longest trip of the season is next as the Imps travel to Torquay United. A surprising 300+ make the trip down the seaside town but it appears to be yet another wasted trip to Plainmoor as after a first half that the Imps had shaded, Torquay had the lead as they broke away from an Imps penalty appeal, the ball falls to Garner about 25 yards out and he hits an absolute stunner to give Torquay the lead with their first shot of the game.

The goal seemed to kick City into gear though as a handball saw the Imps win a penalty soon after the goal. Paul Mayo stepped up with a 100% record from the spot for City, he hits his penalty well but former Boston keeper, Nathan Abbey, produces a good double save as he saves the rebound from Mark Stallard.

2 minutes into injury time and probably the most unlikely thing possible happens. A deep Amoo cross into the box is headed back across goal, it’s headed down and Abbey fumbles the ball up into the air, out of no-where, Paul Morgan rises like the proverbial salmon and heads the ball in for only is 2^nd City goal since joining from Preston North End in 2001. Even he is surprised and he doesn’t know what to do and just ends up running towards the City fans who at this point, are going crazy.

After 5 minutes of the 4 added on had been played (not a misprint), City win a corner and after it bouncing around the box, the falls into the path of former Torquay striker, Martin Gritton. He appears to be miles offside but just smashes the ball into the net to give City a Man Utd scale comeback and the away fans go absolutely ballistic. The final whistle blows soon after and City can celebrate a day which will live long in the memory.

It is confirmed that Ryan Amoo will serve a ban that was gained during the previous season, a very strange delay to suspend someone but the club are more focused on a day that many City fans had been looking forward to as the friendly with Liverpool has arrived. The sold old crowd sees Gonzalez, and Idrizaj give Liverpool a 2-0 half time lead before Ryan Semple pulls one back late on. At the same time, Jeff Hughes is winning his 6^th Under 21 cap as the Northern Irish lose 3-0 to Romania.

Unbeaten Walsall are the next team to face City and to say City controlled the game was an understatement. Scott Kerr gave City a first half lead with a low drive from 30 or so yards before Lee Frecklington rounded off a great passing move with a powerful header past Clayton Ince.

City should have made it 3-0 on many occasions before the men from the Bescot pulled one back ten minutes from 10 when Marriott failed to deal with a weak effort from Taylor, the keeper could only watched as the slow moving ball trickled past his lazy dive. It appeared to still be a good win for City though until in the 3^rd minute of added on time, Fanguerio popped up with a very undeserved equaliser for the Saddlers.

Marriott’s lackluster attempts to save Walsall’s only two shots on goal, saw him replaced by Simon Rayner for the trip to Scunthorpe in the Carling Cup. City were outplayed for the majority of the game and it came as no surprise when Mulligan’s brilliant free kick double Scunthorpe’s advantage after Torpey’s first half opener.

Mark Stallard pulls one back with a neat effort from just inside the area before Lee Frecklington equalises with a deflected effort just before the final whistle. The comeback was complete in added on time when Lee Beevers got a faint touch on a free kick before it went in and City fans went wild.

The joy was sort lived though as Scunthorpe scored two quick-fire goals. The first of which is from a player who almost joined the Imps, there was nothing much Rayner could doing about Shane Paul’s goal but his weak punch lead to the winner just a minute later as ex-Imp Baraclough scooped a shot in to sent Scunthorpe onto a 2^nd round game against Aston Villa.

Birch’s loan spell at Tamworth is over as he badly injures his knee during one of their games and his announced as likely to be out for at least 6 weeks.

Steff Wright then announces that he’s had enough of all the speculation revolving the possible take over and after weeks of not hearing anything official from Trew and Co, he issues a "Put up or Shut Up" statement, this in turn gets no reply.

Mansfield Town away was the final game of the month and to say this game was all about one man would be an understatement. Jamie Forrester hit a 28 minute hat-trick to seal the 3 points before even 1/3 of the game had gone. His first was from the spot after a foul on Frecklington. He soon doubled his tally as he sent an unstoppable across-goal shot from the left hand side of the area and he rapped up his hat-trick with a close range finish after his initial effort was blocked. Marriott saved a Mansfield penalty just before half time.

Forrester scored his 4^th with another penalty after a Mayo dive in the area. The game died and Mansfield pulling 2 goals back went largely un-noticed as Danny Reet tapped in from an offside position before Barker made it 4-2 from the spot. The win sees Marriott, Morgan and Forrester all end up in team of the week.

The final news of the month sees Nicky Eaden join on loan from Nottingham Forest.