On This Day: Wages Demands Scupper Transfers

July 15, 2024 Gary 1990-1999, From the archives 0

26 years ago, the Imps were looking forward to a season in the third tier, and looking for a new assistant.

Also, as seems to always be the case, we were looking for new signings, and two players were ruled out due to their wages demands. Some things might change in football, but us not paying excessive wages is not one of them.

Firstly, that assistant. Shane Westley had assisted John Beck before the latter’s sacking in March 1998. Westley took over, and appointed a respected football figure to the assistant role – Wally Downes. It’s interesting, because Downes short stay at Lincoln is not listed on his Wikipedia page, but he was here.

Downes had been a key figure in the rise of Wimbledon’s Crazy Gang, and it seemed a natural choice. He liked the long ball purveyed by Beck and Westley, and his methods were also all about team building and making things hostile for the opposition.

However, he may have slipped from the annuls of Imps history, as his stay here was very short. By November 1998, he had left the club, sacked at the same time as Westley.

Would Westley have been sacked if the Imps had secured the services of two players they’d been in contact with? John Reames announced in the Echo that not only were we not interested in Nigel Clough, but two other players, Damien Matthew and Steve Agnew, wanted too much money.

Agnew was a fairly big name for the time – he’d been a part of the Leicester City squad promoted to the Premier League in 1994, and had appeared for Sunderland as they won Division One in 1996. Before all that, he was one of the first big-money signings made by Blackburn Rovers’ following Jack Walker’s takeover, costing £700,000.

However, at 32 he posed a bit of a risk, and he’d only played a bit-part role for Sunderland prior to leaving the club. He wanted more than £2,000 per week accoridng to Reames, and that was not feasible, so he joined York City. It was a good choice by Reames; Agnew started just 19 Football League games that season for York, as they were relegated with us.

Matthew was 27 at the time, and had played for Chelsea and Crystal Palace, but had only made 75 Football League appearances in total – that was just eight on average since the start of his career at Stamford Bridge. He hadn’t been bad for Burnely, netting seven goals in 59 matches across a two-season stay, and Northampton looked like they were getting a bargain.

They weren’t. He got 15 minutes on his debut before being withdrawn, then 45 minutes in the cup against Sunderland before disappearing all season with back and hip injuries. Along with York (and us), Northampton were relegated at the end of the season. Sadly, Matthew played just one more game before retiring at the age of 29.

John Reames often took a lot of abuse from Imps’ fans, but here’s further evidence of his hindsight proving to be more useful than supporters clamouring for signings.