Released By Lincoln City, This Striker Later Played For Celtic and Burnley

As we approach our first league meeting with Burnley this century, I’ve been prepping for the game, and a name popped up that I had to write about.

I was researching my Good, Bad and Ugly article, looking for former players of the two clubs, and I came across a player I have been meaning to do a feature on for some time. Not many players are released by Lincoln City, but end up playing in the top flight, or moving to Celtic. Not many of them get a reputation for killing pigeons, either.

Wayne “Bert” Biggins had a knack for making a scoring first impression, although convincing Colin Murphy that he could be relied upon proved rather harder. The Sheffield-born striker joined us on schoolboy forms in February 1977 and became an apprentice the following summer, before scoring on his reserve debut against Rotherham in September 1978. There was a poacher’s touch to that first goal, with Biggins diverting Alan Eden’s shot into the net after the visiting goalkeeper had punched the ball clear. Glenn Cockerill grabbed the winner in a 2-1 victory, but Biggins had made his first contribution to the Sincil Bank scoresheet.

The reserve records show four North Midlands League goals that season, followed by three and six in the next two campaigns, while an offer of professional terms and a trip to Crewe as cover for David Sunley suggested the first team was coming into view. He also helped himself to the final goal in our wonderfully unlikely 8-2 demolition of Tulsa Roughnecks in October 1979, rounding off the scoring with an 88th-minute strike. However, his progress was far from straightforward, and by March 1981 Murphy revealed that he had recently sent the youngster home because he was not doing justice to himself. His assessment was typically blunt: “He is very skilful, but skill without application and effort will get me the sack.”

Biggins responded with five goals in two matches over four days, earning a first-team debut against Hartlepool as City searched for the goals to settle a few promotion nerves. With us winless in six league games, he broke the deadlock in the 59th minute, lifting the ball over goalkeeper Graham Richardson after Gordon Hobson’s shot struck the post, his own effort catching the inside of an upright before dropping in. George Shipley added the second in a 2-0 win, giving Biggins a scoring league debut to go with his scoring reserve debut.

He started seven more games, and it seemed like Murphy had unearthed a diamond. Remember, this is the manager who spotted Trevor Peake, Steve Thompson, Devon White, Tony Cunningham, John Fashanu, George Shipley and Keith Scott, all of whom later played in the top flight (yes, I assume I have missed some).

Sadly for us and for Biggins, it proved to be his only goal in eight league appearances. With Cunningham, Derek Bell and Hobson all competing for places, he was given a free transfer that May, still only 19. After leaving Sincil Bank, Biggins combined non-league football at Matlock Town and King’s Lynn with work as a hod carrier, before Burnley offered him another crack at the professional game in February 1984.

He promptly scored four times in his first four appearances, including a hat-trick against us, which was a fairly emphatic way of suggesting he might have something to offer. After the virtuoso showing, Murphy even admitted he may have made a mistake, labelling it one of the ‘most difficult decisions’ he’d ever made. ‘Of all the players I have ever released,’ said Murphy, ‘Wayne is the only one I had any doubts over whether I was doing the right thing’. Biggins, to his credit, collected the match ball and simply said, ‘It was great to get a hat trick against Lincoln after playing for so long in non-league.’ Fair.

His 21 goals the following season could not prevent Burnley slipping into the Fourth Division, but Norwich saw enough to pay £35,000 for him in October 1985, and he soon had a Second Division championship medal and top-flight football to show for it. Manchester City followed in the summer of 1988, with nine league goals in 32 appearances before Stoke paid £250,000 to take him to the Potteries a year later.

Stoke bought Biggins with promotion in mind and promptly got relegated, although their new striker did at least finish as leading scorer. In fact, he topped their scoring charts in each of his first three seasons, culminating in a career-best 28 goals in all competitions as Stoke reached the play-offs and won the Football League Trophy at Wembley. Stockport spoiled the promotion party but were beaten in the final, so Biggins still came away with something for the mantelpiece. A move to Barnsley in 1992 brought another 16 goals in 51 appearances, before his former Stoke boss Lou Macari offered him a rather unexpected destination: Celtic.

His arrival in November 1993, in a deal involving £100,000 and Andy Payton heading the other way, became one of the more notorious signings of a miserable Celtic era. Ten appearances produced no goals, and When Saturday Comes later compared him to “a natural understudy for Benny in Crossroads”, before suggesting the litter blowing across Celtic Park showed more purpose in the penalty area. It was savage stuff, and perhaps a little harsh on a player with a respectable scoring record elsewhere, but his stay was over by March 1994, when Stoke paid £125,000 to bring him back. Luton, Oxford and Wigan followed, with another championship medal at Wigan before he returned to non-league football with Leek Town, later playing for and managing Stocksbridge Park Steels and playing and coaching at Buxton.

For all those clubs and goals, however, the story that deserves the widest audience involves Biggins, a trip to the greyhounds and several thousand pounds’ worth of racing pigeons. By his own account on Undr the Cosh, a sponsor at Stoke asked him to take the birds home and release them, allowing their owner to judge how quickly they could make the return journey. Biggins agreed, but after the usual post-match beers he got home, changed and disappeared off to the dogs, overlooking one fairly important job. The pigeons spent the night in the boot of his car.

The problem became apparent the following morning when their owner, Bob, rang to ask whether he had let them go, prompting Biggins to remember exactly where he had left them. “Yeah, I let them go straight away, Bob,” he assured him, before heading outside to discover “feathers everywhere” and finally releasing his passengers. When he spoke to Bob again, the verdict on the birds was that they were “no good to me now”, although Biggins continued to insist he had sent them on their way at the appointed time. Indeed, he admitted while telling the story that Bob still believed his version: “If he listens to this, that’s the first time he’ll know.”

Biggins is one I’d have liked us to have kept a little longer, although being an infant, I couldn’t communicate it at the time. Murphy had a promotion-winning side, plenty of forwards and doubts about his application, so you can understand why he let him go, but eight games seems a shame given how much football he still had in him. A lad who scored on his reserve debut and his first-team debut clearly knew where the goal was, even if we struggled to get the best out of him.

He could at least have had the decency to save that Burnley hat-trick for someone else.