Past Meetings: Lincoln City vs Bradford City.

The Imps and Bantams is a game that will always have a special quality that goes beyond football.

It’s emotional, and the shared history makes it feel like a reunion of two old friends, who can shake hands before and after and go about their business. Of course, our history predates that dreadful day in 1985.

Lincoln and Bradford have known each other for over a century, first meeting in the 1903-04 Second Division.

The ledger leans narrowly in favour of the Bantams overall, but recent chapters contain emphatic Lincoln victories and a couple of tight league battles that have influenced seasons.

Head-to-head v Bradford City

	Lincoln wins	Draws	Bradford wins
Cup	1	0	0
League Cup	1	2	2
League	26	18	30
FA Cup	1	2	1
Total	29	22	33

Recent Clashes

The cup matches in the early 2020s were emphatic from an Imps perspective. In September 2020, City raced to a five-goal EFL Cup victory at Valley Parade, with an own goal setting the tone before Anthony Scully, Lewis Montsma, James Jones, and Callum Morton scored.

The following August saw another away cup victory, this time in the Football League Trophy, with Tom Hopper, Hakeeb Adelakun, and Scully delivering a 3-0 win that felt routine by the final whistle.

The margins were smaller in League Two in 2010-11. Lincoln won 2-1 away thanks to Delroy Facey and Gavin McCallum after James Hanson’s opening, while Bradford won the reverse at Sincil Bank on New Year’s Day with the same score.

Those fixtures summed up the clubs’ competitiveness, with tight games decided in minutes and away days typically yielding more than expected.

That’s four away victories in four meetings between the teams; what we’d give for a fifth tomorrow night!

Earlier Meetings

The rivalry has served up some eye-catching scorelines. Lincoln hit five at Valley Parade in March 1976, a statement win that still gets mentioned whenever the fixture rolls around.

Home thumpings appeared in other eras too, including four-nil victories at Sincil Bank in 1938 and 1939, and a five-nil success in 1906.

Bradford have had their spells as well, with hard-earned one-nil and two-one wins featuring regularly through the Division Three and Division Four years, and a handful of stalemates that did little for either promotion push.

The pattern across decades is familiar: spells of parity punctuated by a big swing that lives long in the memory.

Conclusion

Recent history offers Lincoln cause to be confident in knockout football, while the longer ledger reminds Bradford that they frequently find a way in the most important league encounters.

This is the first encounter between the teams since our relegation season in 2010/11, which resulted in our season’s penultimate away win.

Curiously, this is the fifth of seven matches between the teams at Valley Parade.