City visit Orient on Saturday, and one thing we might just see is a goal glut.
Five goals, even seven in a game, have been known against Orient, and while I’m not sure we’ll see a lot tomorrow, it has been a happy hunting ground for City. In the last 30 years, we’ve had a couple of 3-2 wins, they’ve won 3-2 and 5-0, and we didn;t play each other at all for 17 years!
The two clubs have met more than sixty times across multiple divisions, sharing an even record that underlines just how closely matched they have been for over a century. From Edwardian meetings in the old Second Division to modern duels in League One, this is a rivalry built on balance, drama, and the occasional thumping scoreline.
Recent Clashes
The 2024/25 season brought two tight encounters that perfectly captured the knife-edge nature of this fixture. The first, at Sincil Bank in October, saw Lincoln claim a deserved 2–1 victory. Goals from Ethan Hamilton and Reeco Hackett secured the points after a spirited second-half performance, giving City a boost as they looked to establish their home form under Michael Skubala.
When the sides met again at Brisbane Road in February, the result swung the other way. Orient came flying out of the blocks, with Sonny Perkins netting twice inside half an hour to leave Lincoln chasing. Lewis Montsma pulled one back before the break and James Collins levelled, but Charlie Kelman’s stoppage-time winner sealed a 3–2 defeat that stung, given how close City had come to turning it around.
Those results mirrored the previous campaign’s pattern, when Lincoln won both League One meetings. In November 2023, Ethan Hamilton’s late strike earned a 1–0 away victory in East London, followed by a 1–0 success at Sincil Bank on Good Friday, extending a short spell of dominance that temporarily tilted the all-time balance in the Imps’ favour. However, we only led for one minute across the 180 that counted, having been losing the original game at Brisbane Road which was abandoned.
Earlier Meetings
Go back through the decades, and the story of Lincoln and Orient is littered with swings of momentum. The early 2000s produced a string of lively encounters in the basement division, none more dramatic than the 4–3 thriller at Sincil Bank in October 2004. Gareth McAuley’s brace and Simon Yeo’s strike weren’t enough that day as Lee Steele completed a hat-trick for the visitors, sealing a breathless away win that remains one of the standout games between the sides in modern times. I remember that, because I chucked a proper strop on the way home, cancelled a night out and ended up sitting on a bench in Welton drinking warm tins of beer, alone.
Just a few years earlier, Orient had delivered one of the heaviest defeats in the fixture’s history, a 5–0 demolition at Brisbane Road in December 2001 (I wasn’t there, I was Christmas shopping in Suzy Q’s all afternoon). Steve Watts scored twice, with Wayne Gray and Scott Canham also on target in a game that typified a difficult era for Lincoln. Yet by the time Keith Alexander’s Imps reached successive play-offs in the mid-2000s, the rivalry had evened out again, with a run of four consecutive draws in the 2004–06 seasons.
Further back still, the clubs were regular opponents throughout the 1980s and early 1990s, facing off in the old Fourth Division. Both sides enjoyed occasional home wins, but rarely did a pair of games stand out quite like the 1–0 Lincoln victory at Sincil Bank in November 1997, when a disciplined defensive display secured a crucial three points on the way to promotion under John Beck. The 1-0 defeat at their place, with Terry Fleming dismissed after 28 minutes, saw John Beck dismissed by Lincoln the day before.
Ironically, it was also against Orient that Beck was arrested at 3 pm, just before the start of the season before.
Even earlier, the pair were adversaries in the post-war lower leagues, often separated by little more than a goal or two. The 1960s saw Lincoln dominate briefly, with successive 2–0 wins in 1961 and 1982 capping a 20-year gap in fixtures.
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