From Busby Babes to brief loan spells, Manchester United and Lincoln City have shared a rather more interesting cast of players than you might expect.
I’ve been going through the history books, compiling lists, and getting together a full XI of players who have been on the books of both. They may not have made a first-team appearance at Old Trafford, but we have selected an XI of players who have been with both the Red Devils and the Red Imps.
We’ve gone for a 3-4-3, with a few liberties taken over positions to accommodate players whose careers connect Old Trafford and Sincil Bank. Some were established United first-teamers, others never made it beyond the reserves, and their contributions in a Lincoln shirt were equally varied.
I haven’t included two players who moved to City on loan from United: David Wilson and Michael Appleton, purely because we had a lot of midfielders! I can only pick XI!
Mike Pollitt
Mike Pollitt began his career at Manchester United, turning professional in 1990 after a two-year apprenticeship. He never made a senior appearance for them, and after being released by Alex Ferguson, he joined Bury, from where his route to Sincil Bank involved two loan spells before City took over his contract in late 1992.
He featured regularly under both Steve Thompson and Keith Alexander, but was never what I would regard as a particularly safe pair of hands. He is perhaps best remembered locally for having a punch-up outside Ritzy in October 1992. Sam Ellis transfer-listed him in the summer of 1994, and he moved to Darlington, leaving just as the 1994/95 season was getting under way.
What followed was a considerably better career than many who watched him at Lincoln might have predicted. After further moves, he established himself as Rotherham United’s number one across two spells, before joining newly promoted Wigan Athletic in 2005 and finally playing Premier League football. He even started the 2006 League Cup final against Manchester United, although a hamstring injury forced him off after only 15 minutes. From Ritzy to a cup final against his first club, that is some journey.
Ian Greaves
Ian Greaves brought rather more substantial Manchester United credentials to Lincoln. A full-back in Matt Busby’s side, he won a league championship medal in 1956 and played in the 1958 FA Cup final, when United were beaten by Bolton Wanderers. Injury had kept him out of the squad for the European trip that ended in the Munich air disaster, and he subsequently helped the club rebuild its shattered team.
His Lincoln career was much shorter. Signed as cover for broken-leg victim Ron Allen, he made 11 league appearances in 1960/61 before moving on to Oldham Athletic. He had arrived with experience at the highest level, but his brief stay coincided with our relegation from Division Two and the beginning of a particularly difficult period in our history.
It was as a manager that Greaves made his most lasting impression elsewhere. He took Huddersfield Town to the Second Division title in 1970, repeated the achievement with Bolton in 1978, and later led Mansfield Town to victory in the 1987 Freight Rover Trophy final. That is a decent managerial CV for someone whose playing contribution at Sincil Bank can be easy to overlook.
Regan Poole
Regan Poole began with Cardiff City’s academy before moving to Newport County, where he became their youngest player at 16 years and 94 days. Manchester United signed him in September 2015 for an initial £100,000, potentially rising to £400,000. His only senior appearance at Old Trafford came in February 2016, when he replaced Ander Herrera late in the Europa League victory over Midtjylland.
Loans at Northampton Town and Newport followed, including a trip to the 2019 League Two play-off final with the latter, before a permanent move to Milton Keynes Dons. He joined City in January 2021, with his signing announced on an episode of the lockdown show, Matchday Live. Initially, he was berated by some supporters, not least after conceding a penalty in a key promotion clash with Hull City.
After that, he became a key figure in our defence, scoring a memorable late winner against Charlton Athletic in October 2021 and collecting both Player of the Season and Players’ Player of the Season for 2021/22. At a time when we often struggled for something to shout about, he was the one putting in tackles to lift the crowd. Mark Kennedy’s side could be uninspiring, and sometimes a big Poole tackle felt like the only thing we had to cheer.
He made 111 league appearances for the Imps before leaving at the end of his contract in 2023 and joining Portsmouth, with whom he won the League One title the following season. He also made his senior Wales debut in October 2023, starting their four-goal victory over Gibraltar. Of this XI, his Lincoln contribution will be among the easiest for most readers to remember.
Roy Killin
Roy Killin was born in Toronto in July 1929 but grew up in Manchester, joining United’s junior sides in 1947 and becoming a professional in 1949. He played for their reserves and ‘A’ team without making a first-team appearance, before moving to Lincoln in August 1952. At Sincil Bank, the left-back served as understudy to Doug Graham.
All ten of his senior Lincoln appearances came in the second half of 1953/54, comprising seven league outings and three in the FA Cup. He moved to Peterborough United that summer, when they were still a non-league club, and enjoyed a much more substantial run of first-team football there. A knee injury brought that spell to an end in 1958.
There was another chapter back in the country of his birth. Killin returned to Toronto in 1962 and played semi-professionally for a further two years. His Lincoln record is modest, but the Canadian-born defender provides a link between the two clubs from well before the modern academy loan system.
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