Jamie Pardington

Pardington has taken an unusually well travelled route through goalkeeping, spending years out on loan at a string of smaller clubs instead of settling anywhere long enough to become first choice. Every one of those moves demanded he prove himself again against a new set of team mates and a new level of opposition, building a resilience that keepers who stay in one place rarely need. He has extended his contract at Lincoln despite that constant shuffling between clubs, a sign the parent club rates what they see in training.

The tension now is whether that accumulated experience finally converts into a genuine run of first team football rather than another loan somewhere else. Goalkeepers usually need consistent minutes at one level to truly develop, and he has mostly been denied that so far. Lincoln fans are watching to see if patience with him is about to be rewarded.