Controversial Lincoln City Figure Bags Move To National League Basement Boys

Controversial Lincoln City figure Lee Angol has resurfaced at the bottom of the National League South after signing for struggling Eastbourne Borough.

The 31-year-old forward has joined the Connect Management Stadium outfit after leaving Cheltenham Town, arriving with almost 400 senior appearances behind him and a reputation for popping up across the EFL and non-league over the past decade. This time, however, the task is clear: Eastbourne Borough are rooted to the foot of the division and facing a fight to avoid relegation.

Angol remains a controversial name around Sincil Bank despite two relatively short spells with the club. He earned the moniker – bagging a hat-trick on his debut, winning a title, and celebrating on an open-topped bus all made him popular. Moving to our bitter rivals and a hated manager for more money, flopping, then coming back on loan and barely playing tarnished his legacy somewhat.

From unforgettable debut to strange Lincoln legacy

Angol’s route to Lincoln had already been an eventful one. A Tottenham Hotspur academy product, he began his senior career with Wycombe Wanderers before dropping into non-league, where he exploded into form with Boreham Wood in the 2014-15 season, scoring 25 league goals and helping them win promotion while claiming the Conference South Golden Boot. That earned him a move to Peterborough United, where he scored 11 times in League One before a serious ankle injury disrupted the following campaign and led to his loan move to Lincoln in March 2017.

His arrival at Sincil Bank was unforgettable. Angol struck a debut hat-trick in a 4-0 win away at Braintree Town, the first Lincoln player to score three on debut since Billy Cobb against Luton Town in the mid-1960s. He finished the spell with six goals in 13 appearances, including a crucial strike against Forest Green and another on the final day against Southport, playing his part in a memorable season as Danny Cowley’s side pushed on towards promotion.

For a brief moment, it appeared as though his future might lie permanently at Sincil Bank. Angol was even spotted celebrating on the team bus around Lincoln after promotion had been secured, and many expected a deal to follow when he left Peterborough.

Instead, he resurfaced at Mansfield Town under Steve Evans, a move that quickly cooled some of the affection built during that explosive loan spell. He scored nine league goals for Mansfield in the 2017-18 season before later spells with Shrewsbury Town, Leyton Orient and Bradford City.

Lincoln supporters saw him again in January 2019 when he returned on loan during the club’s title-winning League Two campaign. The second spell was brief and largely symbolic, producing only two substitute league appearances, but it added another curious chapter to a career that has never followed a predictable path.

Since then, Angol has remained a familiar figure around the EFL and non-league scene. He scored regularly for Sutton United and later Morecambe, finishing as the latter’s leading league scorer, before joining Cheltenham Town in the summer of 2025.

Now he drops back into the National League South with Eastbourne Borough, a club battling against the odds to stay in the division. They sit at the bottom of the table with just 31 points from 38 matches, eight wins all season and a goal difference of -25 after conceding 72 times. Only Enfield sit alongside them in the bottom two on the same points tally, and the cluster of teams just above means every result from now until the end of the campaign will matter.

Eastbourne will hope Angol’s experience can help drag them clear of the relegation places. For Lincoln supporters, his career will probably always be defined by that brief but electric first spell, when a confident centre forward arrived from Peterborough, scored three on debut, and carved out a cult reputation that still lingers years later.

National League South bottom eight