The LOTI Tackles The Trinity

The Northolme – Where it all began

With 3-500 Imp fans expected to travel today, this should be a cracker. Justly so given, the historic tussles between Lincolnshire`s original top two. In 1886-87 we recorded our first major success there. Three years earlier the raison d`etre for the Imps formation had been the pursuit of the Lincolnshire County Cup. A seven thousand crowd saw thousands travel by road, bike and train to see a 2-2 draw against Grimsby followed by a 2-0 triumph in the replay on the same ground the following week. Anyone standing in the away end today, the one uncovered terrace, can think back to the time when 4,000 City fans hoisted hats into the air all those years ago.
Trinity`s famous Northolme ground now has capacity of 4,304 (504 seated, 3,800 standing) but it has been a sporting venue for nearly 150 years, beginning life as a cricket ground. The record attendance for a football match was recorded in the Midland League during the 1940`s when 9760 witnessed a game against near neighbours Scunthorpe United.
Gainsborough Trinity Football Club was formed in 1873 as Trinity Recreationists by the vicar of the Holy Trinity Church for young parishioners. In 1889 they became members of the Midland Counties League, finishing seventh. The club quickly became well known for exciting attacking football, and won their first Midland League championship in 1890/91. After finishing runners-up the following season Gainsborough Trinity were proudly elected to the new Football League Second Division along with the Imps. Between 1891 and 1912 they were proud members of the Football League and regarded as the County`s top side after our relegation in 1907/08 (until we replaced them in 1912-13). In 1896/97 they even hammered us 7-0 in a season where we survived re-election despite being 8 points adrift.
Trinity do have an incredible claim to fame in that they are one of the few English clubs never to have experienced relegation. They were voted out of the Football League rather than being directly relegated, replaced by the Mighty Imps. Their first match was against Newton Heath, who went bankrupt ten years later before reforming as Manchester United. The club won three Championships (1928, 1949 and 1967 – by which time the league had become the Midland Counties League) before becoming founder members of the newly-created Northern Premier League in 1969, where it remained until 2004. At the end of the 2003-4 season, the club finished in a high enough position to become founder members of the newly-created Conference North.

A notable former player is Neil Warnock who went on to play for Hartlepool. The ‘Promotions are us` specialist then revolutionised Sheffield United, taking them to the Premiership. As a non-league club, Trinity have recorded five wins against Football League opposition (a feat known as giant-killing). Victories were recorded against Crewe Alexandra in 1928 and 1931, Port Vale in 1937, Gateshead in 1938 and Mansfield Town in 1946.

See you there – it’ll clear up later.