By Kate Jackson
August 3 2013

A lot is often made of how you start to the season, but more often than not the first day of the season doesn't reflect the rest of the season. With the Imps' opener a week away, we look at three campaigns for other clubs that started one way and in another ended another.

Everyone always says that it is vital that you get off to a good start, but even just last season the Imps struggled after an opening day win against eventual Playoff contenders Kidderminster. Imps wins on the opening day are very rare recently, with only a win in 2004/5 at Shrewsbury ending with a positive season.

So how vital are first days of the season? Well here are three clubs who had differing starts to the season and how their luck changed.

We'll start with last season.

2012/2013 - EVERTON 1 MANCHESTER UNITED 0

Manchester United suffered a miserable end to the 2011/12 season after they went from being champions to second place in the dying seconds of what was probably the most exciting season on record. Their city rivals were favourites for the title and they were already off to a positive start before Manchester United kicked off.

United were second best in a game at Everton, who are far from the ideal opposition at any time during a season, let alone on the first day, and it was Marouane Felliani that ultimately proved the difference, it was a result which ultimately left the media writting off the Red Devils. Many believed that the previous season's late title win for City meant that United's time was over and that a new dynasty was starting, and an opening day defeat was the last thing that any side hoping to win the title needs.

United went on a sensational run of results, winning their 11 of their 12 games in all competitions before finally going top in November. With league rivals faultering Ferguson's men were storming clear in the title and very few teams in any competition were able to cope with them.

It wasn't until late on in the season that United started taking their foot off of the gas, but by then it didn't matter and the League was won with four games to spare.

It would turn out to be the final time that they would lift the title under the stewardship of Sir Alex Ferguson, who had announced his retirement before the final home game against Swansea City.

The final game of Ferguson's reign, and a season that had begun with a defeat, was a thrilling 5-5 draw at West Bromwich Albion.

2009/2010 SEASON - NORWICH CITY 1 COLCHESTER UNITED 7

....and

2010/2011 SEASON - NORWICH CITY 2 WATFORD 3

In terms of stand out opening day results in recent years, you would be very hard pushed to find one that shocked people as much as this one. Norwich had just been relegated and had former goalkeeper Bryan Gunn in charge, pre-season signings of players such as Grant Holt had raised hopes of a good campaign and the Canaries fans flocked into Carrow Road on the opening day of the season.

One of the pre-season favourites, good squad and what is generally felt to be a hard game to win at......Colchester were 4-0 up within the first 22 minutes. It was 5-0 at half time and despite a Cody McDonald consolation, a Colchester side that contained former Imp Lee Beevers would score twice more, resulting in a 7-1 victory for Essex side. It sent shockwaves throughout the lower leagues and rather unsurprisingly, it took Norwich a while to recover the goal difference.

Gunn was sacked soon after that result and Paul Lambert, manager of the Colchester United side that had very recently thumped Norwich, was controversially appointed as the new manager.

It did take Norwich a few weeks to get start properly and then had only won two of their opening nine games, leaving them 14th in the tabl, however, the season turned with two hefty wins at home against Leyton Orient (4-0) and Bristol Rovers (5-1) respectively.

From that point onwards they became very hard to beat and were often scoring for fun, best illustrated by the return game at Colchester in January when after losing 7-1 to the same side on the opening day, they beat the Essex side 5-0...and Norwich missed a penalty along the way.

With Grant Holt in fine form, and Chris Martin enjoying his best season for the Canaries, Norwich were very hard to pick points off of and the League was sealed with three wins towards the end of the season and they eventually finished top with 95 points.

They may have conceded 7 in their opening home game, but they would only conceded 15 more in the subsequent 22 home matches, finishin 9 points clear of second placed Leeds.

It became a famliar story at the beginning of the next season as they again lost on the opening day, although not as heavily, this time "only" losing 3-2 at home to Watford.  Despite that opening day defeat, they would again storm up the league and dominate many teams, including a fine 4-1 win over local rivals Ipswich.

The again ended the season very strongly with a 6-0 win over Scunthorpe and then a 5-1 win away at Ipswich, and promotion to the Premier League was secured with a 1-0 win away at Portsmouth.

So, two straight seasons where they lost the opening game and still won promotion.

However, whilst there are teams that win leagues and promotion after losing on the opening day, some times the EXACT opposite happens, and Lincoln were very much involved in the next one.

2003/4 SEASON - CARLISLE UNITED 1 YORK CITY 2

If you're looking for fast starters then 10 years ago, York City were the team for you. They scored the first goal of the 2003/4 season after just 2 minutes before securing a win over Carlisle. It was the first of four straight wins that saw York as the only team in the League after four games with a 100% record, two of those wins coming against sides who eventually made the Playoffs. It was the best start by any side in the division for many a year.

Appointing Chris Brass (right) as Player/Manager seemed a stroke of genius, and as the youngest manager in the Football League, he was linked to many jobs higher up the leagues.

They stormed into Sincil Bank for their fifth game, it was a side who hadn't won versus a side who had won every game, on paper one of the easier games to predict, but the Imps comfortably won 3-0 in the end and it all started falling apart for York after that.

As the season turned into the New Year, York still weren't doing overly badly and still had 39 points to show from their first 26 games. The 26th game was a 2-0 win against Carlisle on January 10th, however, that would be the last time that they won a game during the season.

Defeat after defeat after defeat saw the club slowly slip down the table but no-one really noticed how badly they were doing until it was too late. As bad as Lincoln's end to 2010/11 was, York's end to 2003/4 was even worse as they only gained five points after January 10th and although they were only officially relegated in the final two weeks of the season, they were long gone.

Almost ironically they were relegated with Carlisle, making it the second season in a while that the two teams going down had played each other on the first day, and it almost happened a third time in a row the season afterwards.

York were relegated to the Conference and didn't return to the Football League until last season.

First day false dawns of Manchester United, Norwich and York

Discussion started by theimps.ka (IP Logged), 03/08/2013 14:12

theimps.ka
03/08/2013 14:12

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