Colin Murphy

Thommo almost got the Imps into the play-offs, Keith put us there four years in a row, but neither did what Colin Murphy did; a promotion and a cat’s whisker away from the second tier. He is revered as one of our greatest managers, up there with Keith, Graham Taylor and Dany Cowley, and rightly so. when he returned to the Bank for the first time in the opposition dugout, it was at Christmas in 1986.

After leaving Lincoln, he briefly went to Stockport but left to join Al Ittihad in Jeddah as part of the coaching staff under Bob Houghton. He was back with the Hatters for the following campaign, but it wasn’t going well; they arrived at the Bank bottom of the table with just 13 points; seventeen behind George Kerr’s Imps in eighth. Murphy had returned to take over from the hopeless Asa Hartford, and was hoping to turn their fortunes around. 2833 turned up the day after Christmas to welcome back a legend, just a year-and-a-half after he’d left, but I guess few wish they’d bothered; it was a dour 0-0 draw.

George Kerr welcomed the man who had brought success to the club in the eighties in his notes, and interestingly, Andy Gorton, Trevor Matthewson, Clive Evans and David Mossman were listed in the Stockport team. By the time we went there in April, Ernie Moss and Phil Brown were there too. On that occasion, they won 1-0 to go above us and closer to safety.

Colin Murphy kept Stockport up, at our expense, but was on hand to save us the following season, adding a trophy to his already impressive Imps CV. He came back to the Bank as assistant manager of Hull City, but never as manager again. He can often be seen at the ground now, a true Lincoln legend.