It seems Lincoln City are destined to get terrible draws in the League Cup, as our reward for beating Blackpool 4-1 is a 500-mile round trip to face AFC Bournemouth.
Since coming back into the EFL, the League Cup has sent us away on 16 occasions, facing Rotherham United, Port Vale, Blackburn Rovers, Huddersfield Town, Bradford City, Shrewsbury Town, Doncaster Rovers, Barrow, Bristol City, Southampton, Sheffield United, Notts County, Harrogate Town, Burton Albion, Derby County and Blackpool.
We’ve been at home five times. Everton, Liverpool, West Ham and Chelsea have, in fairness, been decent home ties in that period, with Harrogate the only lower-league opposition we’ve faced at home, and we lost that.
Going back even further, the run of away games includes Leeds (2010/11), Derby County (08/09), Doncaster Rovers (07/08), and Scunthorpe United (06/07), with Barnsley the only home tie in that period in 2009/10. You have to go back to 2005/06, more than 20 years ago, to have seen Lincoln City win a tie at home in this competition, as we beat Crewe 5-1. Naturally, our reward for that was an away tie at Fulham.
We haven’t been to Bournemouth since 2009/10, when they beat us 3-1 in a League Two fixture, with Brett Pitman (7 minutes) and Sammie Igoe (20 and 61) on the scoresheet for them, Chris Fagan giving us a glimmer of hope by pulling one back on 26 minutes. The season before that, Lenny John-Lewis scored as we won 1-0 there, and the game at the Bank was a classic. City led through N’Guessan before going 3-1 down, a brace of Pitman penalties seemingly beating us. Lee Beevers got one back on 86, before Lee Frecklington levelled on 90 minutes.
I suppose we can still mention the 9-0 defeat we inflicted on them in Harry Redknapp’s first game as a manager, something that has gone down in folklore in Lincoln. There won’t be a repeat of that at Dean Court, that is for sure. Hopefully, there won’t be a repeat of the 2003 play-off final score either, which was 5-2 to them, just a few weeks after we’d beaten them 1-0 in the league.
The tie with the Cherries is likely to take place the week commencing September 7th, which means our trip to Bristol City is likely to be moved. Matchday 1 in the Europa League, where Bournemouth will compete, is the following week, meaning our tie will delay our reunion with Michael Skubala.
Comments Welcome!