Six Lincoln City Players Who Flopped After Leaving Sincil Bank

Adrian Patulea

This pick feels harsh, as I loved Patulea, but I guess that’s what this is about. It’s not always bad players, just ones you felt might do better, but didn’t.

Patulea’s arrival was anything but conventional. He initially turned up asking Peter Jackson for a trial and was knocked back, only to respond by running laps of the training pitch with his wife on his back to prove a point, which, to be fair, worked. After six weeks of training with the squad, he did enough to earn a deal alongside Jackson’s so-called Magnificent Seven, although in reality, that group never quite lived up to the billing. He made an instant impression in a friendly against Lincoln United, hitting a second-half hat-trick that had supporters buzzing, even if there were early complications as his former club, Petrolul Ploieşti, still held his registration. Once that was resolved, he officially signed on 29 August 2008 and wasted little time making his mark, scoring on his debut off the bench in a 2-0 win against Barnet, before adding another just 30 minutes into his first start away at Brentford.

For a spell, he looked like the answer. Goals came at a strong rate, 11 from just 19 starts, making him one of the most prolific Imps in history, and he carried a genuine threat in a side that often lacked one. That made what followed all the more frustrating. As the season wore on, he found himself increasingly out of favour, despite being one of the few players capable of changing a game, and tensions grew between player and manager. Patulea maintained he had not been offered a new contract, Jackson insisted he had, and neither side budged. With no resolution in sight, he departed at the end of the campaign to join Leyton Orient, bringing a short but memorable spell to an abrupt end, while Jackson himself followed not long after, dismissed just a few months later.

After Lincoln, he scored just four goals in England, one for Orient and three for Hayes and Yeading. In fairness, he was prolific with Pafos and Farul Constanţa, but never landed properly in the UK.