It’s time.
With all of the talk of keepers recently, it’s finally time for me to face up to something I’ve denied for 13 years. It’s time to absolve Elliot Parish of blame for those awful days in May 2011.
These ‘In Defence’ articles started with me looking to defend the indefensible in terms of Lincoln City, a fun way to approach some of the villains of the past from a new angle. It’s really just a topic thread to keep me writing on days where the news is slow, or where I want to pull some unseen images from Bubs’ archives.
However, a few moments ago I was in the shower thinking about goalkeepers (which is probably Chris’s thing) and it struck me that for Elliot Parish’s entire career, I’ve blamed him for something that just wasn’t his fault. I’ve carried anger at his name, fury at lower points of my Imps fandom, and it was completely misplaced.
Elliot Parish was not to blame for us dropping out of the Football league in 2011. It wasn’t even close.
For those who don’t know the story, Steve Tilson took over from Chris Sutton in 2010, friendlier on the outside but seemingly less so with his players. He banished Joe Anyon to Morecambe and did something that, at the time, felt like self-destruction but is now the norm – he loaned a young keeper from a bigger club.
No, not Parish. He loaned Trevor Carson, who kept four clean sheets in 16 matches, but who helped us to eight wins. We were just a simple win away from staying up, and then Carson got recalled. The facts of that are not set in stone – some say the player requested it as it seemed to come around the time Tilson is supposed to have told most of the squad they weren’t required the following season. I suppose Tilson didn’t mind; we only needed one win in eleven. He didn’t seem too stressed when Carson went back to Sunderland, because he called up Aston Villa and ordered another rent-a-keeper.
Carson had already played 20 times at League Two level before he came to us, but his replacement, Parish, hadn’t played once, although he had turned out for England Under 20s. With veteran Paul Musselwhite sitting on the bench, he made his debut at home against Rotherham. City lost 6-0.
In the next eight games, Parish didn’t get a single clean sheet, and as Danny Hylton smugly scored a penalty to set Aldershot on their way to beating us in the final game, I fumed at the young keeper. Joe Anyon sat on the bench, six clean sheets to his name, watching on.
It really wasn’t Parish’s fault, was it? The defence was as tough as Angel Delight, unreliable and constantly changing. Parish was just 20, thrown into the deep end at a club where the fans already hated most of the players, where nervousness permeated from every supporter in the stadium. Today, he’d go on loan to Worcester first, then maybe Tamworth, gaining experience of men’s football before leaping into League Two. That was the route the young keeper needed to take, rather than making his debut with Pat Kanyucka in front of him and Tom Kilbey holding the midfield.
I’m not sure if his Imps spell damaged him, but it was 2015/16 before he made more than 20 appearances in a single season, and even today, as a 34-year-old last with St Johnstone, 6% of his career outings have come in a Lincoln City shirt.
These days, I feel calmer about players and place less blame on them. A striker who misses a chance, for instance, has to get in position to miss the chance. I’d rather have a John Akinde who people criticise for missing chances than a Luke Plange who didn’t create any. I try to see the context of a bad performance, the story behind someone struggling to make an impression. I can’t blame a keeper for letting in goals when we were constantly under pressure and only the supporters and maybe two players gave a flying fcuk whether we went up or down.
In May 2011, Elliot Parish was a 20-year-old keeper with no senior experience, thrown into a pressure situation where fans and players had little to no relationship. He entered a fractured dressing room, a squad downbeat because of something the manager had already done. The manager was often off down to Essex, not really committed to the cause, and the expectation of staying up weighed heavily, week after week, until it became accepted we would not.
No 20-year-old deserves that for his first loan. At least after the Rotherham thrashing, he could have sat on the bench while Musselwhite or Anyon, older hands with experience, shouldered some burden. Instead, Tilson hung the young man out to dry, and I fell for it. Not anymore.
Elliot Parish: I’m sorry.
You must be logged in to post a comment.