The team had a new strip supplied by our sponsor ERA, whoever chose it, made an excellent choice, as it resembled Chelsea's kit ! The only addition to the squad was young Darren Askew.  Jamie and Noel were now regulars in the team, and Andy Allsop who had suffered a broken leg, the previous season at home to Duke Willliam on the 3rd March 87, had made a speedy recovery and was able to play a big part in the promotion campaign.

 

The opening game of the season saw us travel.......to the adjacent pitch to play Crows Nest, a late Simon Coy goal gave us a 2-2 draw. This was followed by a win 4-0 win at home to Horncastle, with man of the match Ady Coy scoring a hat-trick.

 

We then won 3-0 at Plough, Nettleham,  2-1 at home to Butcher & Beast, 5-0 v Nalgo (Div. 3 ) in the Ron Eaglen Cup and 4-1 at home to George & Dragon. This sequence saw us race to the top of the league, going into November, with AFC Waddington  close on our heels.

 

We had beaten Duke William 1-0 at home, the week before we took on Premier side Woodhall in the R.E Cup, and nearly caused an upset, but lost by the odd goal, 3-2. A memorable 40 yard thunderbolt from Locky, was the highlight  of the game.

The team bounced back the following weeks, 2-1 at Jerusalem then 2-0 at local rivals BRSA. During November, the goals had dried up for the Coy boys, but luckily, young Slattery was grabbing the vital goals.

So on the 29th November , we faced a top of the table clash, up at St Johns Hospital against Waddington, and afters a pulsating clash, they ended our unbeaten run in the league with a 2-0 win. We then had six week lay off until the 10th January, and had to play 3rd placed Butcher & Beast away, where we scraped a 0-0 draw and two weeks later, let a 2-0 lead slip, against FV Jerusalem, away, and drew 2-2.

This 'winter blip' had seen us drop to 3rd place in the league and with a huge margin in goal difference  compared with Waddington.

 

Ady hit the goal trail again in February, with another superb hat-trick away at Horncastle, where we won 3-0, and a late Simon Coy brace against Crows Nest gave us a narrow 4-3 victory. There was to be another mini blip the following week against  Duke William up at Yarborough, losing 3-2,  this was the game , where,  after the warm up, Martin shouted to the ref ' Hold on ref, my fingers come out !!', and he had dislocated it.

Even though we had jumped back into second place in the table, we were six points behind Waddington with a game in hand.

Once again we bounced back with two more wins, Birchwood 5-1 and George & Dragon 1-0 but again came unstuck at home to Plough, Nettleham, losing 2-1.

The season had now entered into the final run in. We beat AFC Swallowbeck 2-1 at home in the last week of March, but suffered a setback the following week, drawing 0-0 against the same team.

 

It was lucky we had three forwards chipping in with the goals, as there wasn't much goal scoring support from the rest of the side, but, on the plus side the defence / keeper had been pretty mean with only 19 goals conceded. This gave us the goal difference edge over Butcher & Beast.

And so to the crunch battle, a home encounter with Waddington on a sunny April morning. A point would see us return to Division One after many years in the second, and that is what we achieved, with a 1-1 draw, which also saw Waddington crowned as champions.

 

The last Sunday game, saw us hammer BRSA 6-2 with a Simon hat-trick and a brace from Noel  (I better mention, Andy Allsop got the other goal !) and then we lost 4-3 at Birchwood in our final game on the Thursday night. All in all a great season !!

PLAYER OF THE YEAR  -     DAVE ALLSOP

CLUBMAN OF THE YEAR -    MARTYN HAGAN

TOP GOAL SCORER (LEAGUE)  -  SIMON COY