Keith Alexander 2002

Division: Third Division

Estimated Budget: Bottom Three

Ins: Adie Mike, Simon Weaver, Niall McNamara, Ben Futcher, Simon Yeo, Dene Cropper, Scott Willis,

Outs: Justin Walker, Lee Thorpe, Grant Brown, Ian Hamilton, Paul Pettinger, Dave Cameron, Steve Holmes

Rating at the time: 1/10

Rating with hindsight: 9/10

This really was the most torrid of pre-season, where those we signed didn’t actually matter in the grand scheme of things. It was a summer where all we wanted to do was survive, and if we finished outside the bottom two, we’d be delighted. Administration had stripped us of our budget, and I think I’ve been generous by selecting this as a bottom three budget; we were almost certainly the lowest.

The previous season had seen big names leave; John Finnigan isn’t on the list, but him and Justin Walker were both good midfielders for our level. Lee Thorpe had been our main striker for five years or more, whilst Grant Brown and Steve Holmes felt like part of the furniture. Replacing one or two of them would be hard, but all of them?

Keith did a grand job, and yet when we kicked off that season, nobody could have foreseen it, could they? Hell, seven months in, with Yeo on the bench and Cropper misfiring, the biggest hits seemed to be the pairing of Weaver and Futcher. Still. cometh the hour, cometh the man, right?

Biggest Hit

Yeo would have to go down as the biggest surprise of the window, in a positive way. He didn’t have an immediate impact, his 2002/03 was pretty tough up until the final game of the season. After that, he became a Lincoln City hero and remains so to this day. Not bad for a postman from Manchester.

Biggest Flop

It’s hard to say any of the players were a flop, but Adie Mike did get me a bit excited when he signed, and he didn’t set the world alight. He’d been with Manchester City as a youngster and I thought perhaps we’d unearthed a gem, but two goals in 17 matches was his total input into the season.