The long awaited return of Alan Marriott

Tuesday night's visit of Mansfield Town sees the first return of modern day legend Alan Marriott. The goalkeeper broke numerous club records whilst at Sincil Bank and will, assuming he doesn't get injury before hand, make his first playing return to the stadium since he was released at the end of the 2007/8 season.

Alan Marriott was a record breaking goalkeeper for the Imps between the 1999/2000 and 2007/8 seasons. In a home match against Swindon Town on March 25th 2007 he broke the all time appearance record for an Imps goalkeeper, unfortunately he couldn't prevent that game ending with Swindon taking all 3 points back to Wiltshire.

A few months later and in a home game against Accrington on August 25th 2007 he became the first goalkeeper in the club's history to make it 100 clean sheets.

It's amazing to think that he seemingly had no chance of securing first team football when he joined in the 1999/2000 season after leaving Tottenham Hotspur. He joined but was third in the pecking order behind John Vaughn and Barry Richardson. However, with the Imps struggling to be anything more than midtable also-rans following their first year back in what was then known as Division Three following relegation from Division Two, he got his chance in a home game against Torquay and the rest as they say, is history.

With only the occassional and injury preventing him from being constantly between the sticks, Marriott established himself as one of the best shot stoppers in the lower Leagues and was often been approached by other clubs higher up in the Football League.

However, he was far from undroppable as he was replaced by Chris Day and Paul Pettinger by Phil Stant and Alan Buckley respectively. Day had been loaned from Watford following Marriott picking up an injury, but despite Marriott returning from injury after two months, Day remained on loan for a third month and kept Marriott out.

After Marriott regained his first team place on a permanent basis, he would start every League game for the Imps from September 2001 to September 2004 and in that time he was a major contributor to City's forays into the Playoffs. The first of those five Playoff campaigns was the 2002/3 season. He conceded just 37 goals in the 46 league games that season, not one conceding more than twice in that time, combine that with his 18 clean sheets in the league alone and he had an excellent season personally. Marriott's season was literally to end in tears though as Bournemouth shipped five goals past him at the Millennium Stadium in the Playoff Final.

Marriott is the only player to have played every single Playoff match that the club has ever been involved in to date, making a total of 12 appearances in the end of season lottery. Unfortunately City have won just three of those games, drawn two and lost the other seven.

Despite the consistent Playoff heartache, Marriott's only absenses from the first team were mainly through injury, where Simon Rayner replaced him briefly in the 2004/5 season before Marriott regained the No. 1 at Sincil Bank and Rayner was never a serious contender for the first team place. Marriott was rewarded with a new 3 year contract at the end of the 2004/5 season, that despite reported interest from Bradford, who were a Championship club at the time.

A Carling Cup game at Fulham was arguably the best performance Marriott ever made in an Imps shirt. Despite conceding five on the night, Marriott produced numerous fine saves against a strong Fulham side to frustrate the hosts and he came out of the game with some rave reviews. A few days later came the low point of Marriott's Lincoln career, a sending off at Torquay when he kicked the ball as hard as he could at an injured Alan Connell.

Marriott continued without a serious challenger but was still impressing many and it wasn't until the arrival of Peter Jackson that saw Marriott struggle to maintain his place in the team. Ben Smith arrived on loan from Doncaster Rovers and despite making a LOT of errors, he remained in the net until his loan finished, at which point Marriott returned.

With Marriott's contract expiring, is was 50/50 as to whether he would get a new contract, but City's gradual climb from the drop zone seemingly increased his chances. When he went off injured in an away game at Chester City towards the end of the season, few realised it would be the last time he would ever wear the Imps shirt, that despite not even being injured for the last game. Marriott's contract was not renewed and he left Lincoln after nine years, one year shy of a testimonial.

Marriott joined Rushden and then Mansfield, where he has been ever since. Meanwhile, Lincoln have struggled to properly replace Marriott since he left. Burch was good but very prone to mistakes and struggled to keep clean sheets, whereas Anyon is probably as good a shot stopper as Marriott but as Lincoln found out last season, is again very prone to mistakes. The less said about Elliott Parish the better.