Lincoln City and Watford: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

The Ugly: Losing John Ward

John Ward’s place here needs explaining, because he was a terrific player for Lincoln City. The ugly part was losing him, and losing another important connection to Graham Taylor’s outstanding side. This is about the damage done to City by those departures, with Ward chosen as the example.

It could just as easily have been Sam Ellis or Dennis Booth. Both followed Taylor to Watford, and Ward eventually joined them in 1979, two years after the manager had left Sincil Bank. Taken together, those moves underline how much experience and influence we lost from a side that had achieved something special.

Ward was a Lincoln lad who developed into a prolific lower-division centre-forward. He took time to establish himself, but his finishing made him an essential part of Taylor’s team, particularly around the six-yard box. His 29 league and cup goals in the 1975/76 championship season tell you plenty about his importance to that remarkable campaign.

Injury disrupted his later years with us, and by the time he moved to Watford in the summer of 1979, Lincoln had been relegated back to the Fourth Division. The £15,000 fee brought some money into the club, but it also marked the departure of a player closely associated with a much happier period. Another member of that championship team was gone, this time to join the manager who had helped him flourish.

There is nothing unreasonable about Ward wanting to work with Taylor again, and his subsequent coaching career showed how strong their relationship was. From Lincoln’s perspective, though, seeing those familiar figures reunited at Vicarage Road made the loss of our own successful side feel all the more pronounced. Watford benefited from people who had already given us so much.

Ward briefly returned in 1982, but his lasting place in our history had been secured long before that. He was a local goalscorer, a champion and an important figure in one of our greatest teams. It is precisely because he meant so much to Lincoln that losing him earns this place in the ugly.