Group A – Jamie Taylor, John Ward, Tony Woodcock, Andy Graver
Jamie Taylor
Jamie Taylor came on board just after we dropped out of the Football League in 2011. The previous year he’d done well at Eastbourne, and it was supposed he would be the ‘little man’ to Kyle Perry or Sam Smith.
He didn’t have the best of starts at the club, scoring just once before April 2012. Injuries didn’t help, nor did Steve Tilson leaving and David Holdsworth joining the club. By the time we lost 4-0 to Stockport on the 7th of April he’d sat out games in favour of Jefferson Louis, Richard Pacquette, Mark McAmmon and Francis Laurent. He was thrown on for the next match against Darlington, we won 5-0 and he scored. He did the same in the next two games against Fleetwood (2-2) and Ebbsfleet (3-2).
The next season the tricky forward really came into his own, scoring on the opening day against Kidderminster and not looking back. He terrorised opposition defences, at one point scoring eight times in just ten games. He thrived playing alongside Vadaine Oliver in particular, and together they looked a decent partnership. He still suffered from the odd niggling injury, but ended the season as top scorer with 15 goals from 45 matches, a respectable goal every three games.
At the end of his contract he opted to move back down south closer to his family, signing for Sutton and more recently having a good spell back at Eastbourne.
John Ward
The famous Lincolnshire Poacher, arguably one of the best strikers to ever play for the club.
Ward was spotted playing local football for Adelaide Park and signed professional terms in March 1971. He took a couple of seasons to nail down a first team place, but as Graham Taylor’s side began to evolve, John Ward became an integral part of it.
From 1973 to 1977 he missed just a handful of matches, scoring 70 times in four seasons. It was his exploits in 1975/76 that truly endeared him to Imps fans, as if being a local boy done good wasn’t enough. He smashed 29 in league and cup as City romped to the Fourth Division title.
Ward suffered an injury at the start of the 1977/78 season and by the time he came back, he’d ben earmarked by Graham Taylor for greater things. He followed his mentor to Watford, along with Sam Ellis and Dennis Booth for a fee of £15,000 in 1979.
In total he scored 99 goals for City in over 270 outings. Later in his career he joined Taylor as assistant manager of the England team and has managed extensively throughout the Football League. He’s never come home though, preferring not to tarnish his record with City fans, making him the greatest manager we never had.
Tony Woodcock
Woodcock clearly made an impression on someone as he only played four times for City, scoring once on his debut. That game clearly stuck in someone’s mind, City hammered Southport 6-0 during the 1975/76 season.
Maybe Woodcock was picked for his exploits after returning to Nottingham Forest. He won a European Cup and a League title amongst other things before a move to Cologne for a fee that would be worth around £3m in 2018. He later represented Arsenal and played 42 times for England, scoring 16 goals. He is the only ex Lincoln player on the strikers list to actually play in a real World Cup, proudly wearing the three lions in 1982.
Andy Graver
Even with John Ward in this group, if you’d seen Andy Graver play there would only be one winner. In 2007 he was voted the Imps’ greatest ever player.
Graver netted 150 goals in almost 300 appearances across three spells with the Imps. He was fast, opportunistic and above all, a natural goal scorer who showed a passion that would be unheard of today.
Bill Anderson brought him to the club from Newcastle United, a rather reluctant figure at first having set his heart on playing for the Magpies. He enjoyed immediate success for the Imps scoring on his debut against Halifax and quickly established a fruitful partnership with inside-forward Johnny Garvie. He played a key role in City’s record-breaking 1951/52 campaign scoring 36 goals in 35 League games as the Imps won the Division Three North title. He even earned a call up to the England B side, but injury prevented him from getting international honours.
Earlier in that great season he hit six goals as the Imps registered their record victory, 11-1 over Crewe Alexandra – a game he nearly missed due to illness. He scored a perfect double hat trick, two with his left foot, two with his right and two with his head.
In December 1954 he was sold to First Division Leicester City for a record fee of £27,500 plus Eric Littler, making the deal worth around £28,000. That figure today would be the equivalent of around £600,000.
The following season Andy returned to Sincil Bank for £14,000 but stayed only a couple of months before moving on to Stoke City for another large fee. He finally returned to Sincil Bank for two more seasons before retiring from football at the end of the 1960/61 season.
Mea culpa. Most stars are born inside great clouds of gas and dust which undergo gravitational collapse but Tony Woodcock emerged from the stellar nursery we know as Sincil Bank. Those four games were enough to demonstrate his enormous promise, a potential amply fulfilled, as his playing record illustrates.