Last season I ran a series of articles titled ‘thank you, no thank you’, which were just a way of listing a few ex-players and events between two clubs. 

I didn’t ever really think I’d have to do the same for Lincoln and Liverpool. I guess that I do now, right?

The obvious link is the friendly we played back in 2006, but I’m going to steer away from that. I will be using an excerpt from my book for an article later this week, just as part of a build-up to the big game on Thursday. I say ‘big game’, what regular readers listeners or viewers of my material will know I mean is ‘headline game’. All the cool kids know Charlton at home is much bigger. Unless we win, obviously.

Anyhow, I have ploughed recent history to find five connections between Lincoln City and Liverpool, just to keep you amused for five or ten minutes, depending on how fast you read.

Jack Hobbs

It would be remiss to start anywhere other than Jack Hobbs I think. Jack’s contribution on the football pitch for Lincoln was all too brief. After impressing in the youth set up he played approximately three minutes as a late sub for Matt Bloomer against Bristol Rovers in January 2005. At 16 years and 149 days, he became the youngest ever Football League debutant for the club.

His promise had alerted a host of other clubs and both Thursday’s opponents Liverpool and Arsenal were interested in signing him, as well as Spurs and then top-flight Bolton. At first, it seemed Arsenal were leading the race for his signature, but that fell through when they wanted a sell-on clause removed. That prompted Liverpool to agree on a fee reported to be in the region of £750k as well as the sell-on clause and a friendly written into the bargain. All-round it seemed a good deal for a youngster with just three minutes’ league experience and he swapped Sinicl Bank for Anfield on August 18th, 2005. It was his 17th birthday.

Jack made five competitive appearances for Liverpool and also returned to captain the youthful side sent to Sincil Bank for a friendly. He later established himself as a solid and dependable defender with Leicester, Hull City and Nottingham Forest, before tow years with Bolton Wanderers, who finally got their man 13 years late.