BBC Sounds has a brand new podcast, Confessions of a Match Fixer. It features Moses Swaibu discussing match-fixing and an alarming story about the Imps.
Swaibu, convicted of conspiracy to commit bribery in 2015 after a match-fixing investigation, outlines how an attempt was made to arrange for the Imps to concede in the first half of a match against Northampton Town in 2011.
Remember, the Imps were relegated from the Football League in May 2011 after a string of horrendous results in the final eleven games. From early March, we needed just three points to secure safety, but we suffered a complete capitulation that saw us lose all our remaining home games to nil and drop out of the Football League by two points (one, but with a worse goal difference).
After relegation was confirmed, questions were asked about former manager Chris Sutton, who took the brunt of the blame. Once Steve Tilson was sacked the season after, he also became part of the problem, but at the time, he was considered to have ‘done his best’. He didn’t, but that’s another story.
However, does Moses Swaibu’s and Delroy Facey’s 2015 convictions raise questions about some of our results? What does the new podcast add to the story?
The Northampton Game
Rumours were rife as we went down that Delroy Facey had often been in the company of shady characters at our Carlton Boulevard training ground, and Swaibu confirms that in his podcast. He also talks about an away game at Northampton, Monday 3rd January 2011, which we lost 2-1.
The story starts towards the end of episode one of the podcast and resumes at the start of episode two. It’s suggested that Facey invited Swaibu and a group of other players to his room to meet someone who wished to see the Imps concede in the first half. Moses is quite specific that four were invited to Facey’s room and mentions how some of them were ‘London boys’. More on that shortly.
They kept the money overnight, even taking it on the team bus, but all the players invited to the room were on the bench, and the Imps did not concede in the first half. The story is then revealed to have a flat ending – all of the players returned the money and that was that.
There are two big questions: who were the other players, and were there any other games that looked suspicious?
The Players
Firstly, let’s look at the other players who may have been involved, if Swaibu’s recollections are accurate. The bench that day was Paul Musselwhite, Paul Green, Cian Hughton, Mustapha Carayol, Albert Jarrett, Gavin McCallum and Drewe Broughton. Assuming Musselwhite, a coaching staff member, was not involved, that leaves three out of six. Swaibu mentions that a couple were ‘London boys’ – that would initially rule out Paul Green (Birmingham), McCallum (Canada) and Broughton (Hitchin). However, Hughton (Enfield) looks like a possible candidate, and Albert Jarrett was born in Sierra Leone but raised in London. It’s also confirmed Mustapha Carayol grew up in Peckham, an area mentioned by Swaibu, suggesting he was also in the room.
There’s zero insinuation that Hughton, Carayol or Jarrett were involved in match-fixing here, but they’re strong candidates for being the three players that Swaibu identifies on the podcast.
The Games
We’re taking a bit at face value here, but if the Northampton game was the first approach, are there any other suspicious outcomes? If early goals were the bettor’s thing, it’s not hard to find examples of unusually early goals that season. In the ten league matches prior to the Northampton game, we conceded early on a few occasions: Southend (lost 1-0, goal after three minutes), Wycombe (drew 2-2, goal after one minute), Morecambe (won 2-1, conceded after six minutes), Bury (lost 5-0, conceded after ten minutes), Bradford (lost 2-1, conceded after two minutes). That’s five matches where we conceded in the first ten minutes or 50% of the games before the alleged match-fixing attempt. In two of the others, we conceded before half time (Shrewsbury and Northampton at home).
What about after those matches? The game immediately after the Northampton one was Hereford in the FA Cup, where we conceded after four minutes, and let in three before half time. While there’s no suggestion of that being fixed, Facey, Swaibu and four of the subs from Northampton were all on the pitch from the start. A week later, Wycombe scored twice before half time, again with some of those subs on the field. Looking ahead, Bradford (four minutes), Shrewsbury (six minutes) and Barnet (six minutes) all scored early goals before the end of February. Of the ten games after Northampton, we conceded in the first half on seven occasions from ten, keeping clean sheets in the other three matches.
Here’s a curious stat, presented without prejudice. After the 2-1 defeat against Macclesfield, a game in which Facey was injured and played no further part for the Imps, we only conceded three times in the first half in ten fixtures, and only once in the opening 20 minutes (Rotherham, 6-0). Sadly, we also only picked up one point from a possible 30, contributing to our relegation.
Conclusion
We’ll never know if match-fixing contributed to the Imps downfall in 2010/11. There were plenty of contributory factors on the field, such as Trevor Carson being recalled, poor player management, Tilson heading home more often than he went to training, and stuff like that. Also, the results suggest the final ten games, with Facey injured, we were just really bad, conceding not in the first 20 minutes, but pretty much any other time.
We wouldn’t be the club we are today without that spell out of the Football League, and sometimes it is better to have had a rough journey to get to your dream destination than risk not having got here at all.
Still, it makes you think, doesn’t it?
IMPORTANT: The chosen images are intended to depict the season we’re talking about rather than specifically the individuals, and there’s no suggestion that those players pictured were involved in match-fixing at Lincoln City.
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