Lincoln City struck gold with ex-Gillingham defender - He authored one of the Imps' finest ever moments | OneFootball

Lincoln City's 2016-17 season was a dream season for fans, and it also proved to be a transformative one for both the club and defender Sean Raggett.

When Lincoln City signed defender Sean Raggett from then-fellow National League side Dover Athletic in 2016, they could never have imagined just how important a player the towering figure would become for them.

By the start of the 2016-17 season, Lincoln City had been a non-league club for five years and were showing little signs of returning to the EFL anytime soon.

Relegation from League Two in 2011 had been followed by five consecutive seasons finishing in the bottom half of the National League - things were going to soon change however unbeknownst to them.

Raggett, meanwhile, had started his career in the academy at his local professional side Gillingham, but joined Dover Athletic at 16 years of age and had made over 100 appearances for them by the time of his transfer to Lincoln in the summer of 2016, as well having been capped as an England 'C' international.

Sean Raggett produced historic Lincoln City moment in his debut Imps season

With Braintree Town boss Danny Cowley appointed as manager in May 2016, Lincoln were a side reborn in the 2016-17 season, racing to the top of the National League table, but it was in the FA Cup where they attracted national headlines, with an unprecedented run in that year's competition.

Having got past Altrincham and Oldham in the first two rounds, they caused a major surprise by beating Championship side Ipswich in the Third Round, and then beat another second tier side - then-Championship leaders Brighton - 3-1 to make the Fifth Round of the competition.

The last 16 draw looked like it would be insurmountable for Lincoln, which handed them a trip to a Premier League side in the form of Burnley.

Burnley of course had the majority of shot attempts, but Lincoln held their own, and with 90 seconds to play, the score was still tied at 0-0, which when the away side won a corner which would go on to create history.

Sam Habergham's left-footed corner was swung to the back of the box, the ball was headed back towards the opposite side of the goal by Luke Waterfall, and it was met by the 6ft 5in frame of Raggett to head over the line - with assistance from goal line technology to award it - to win the game for Lincoln, making them the first non-league side to reach the quarter-finals of the FA Cup since Queens Park Rangers in 1914, back in the days when the Football League only had two divisions.

Lincoln City's FA Cup run earned Sean Raggett a big step-up the footballing pyramid

The quarter-final stage turned out to be a step too far for the Imps. Drawn away to Arsenal, they were beaten 5-0 and eliminated from the competition.

But the FA Cup run didn't have a destabilising effect on their bid to return to the EFL. Lincoln City ended the 2016-17 season as the National League champions, ending six years in the relative wilderness of the non-league game.

The publicity generated by the FA Cup run, plus his overall performances, earned Raggett a step-up to Norwich City, and they loaned him straight back to Lincoln as they stepped up to League Two, and he was a regular in the first half of the season before being recalled by the Canaries.

Back at Carrow Road though at the start of 2018, Raggett played just twice in the Championship for Norwich, and he then spent time on loan at Rotherham and Portsmouth in the following few years before signing permanently for Pompey in 2020 - he returned to Rotherham in 2024 and remains there to this day.

He will always fondly be remembered at Sincil Bank though for his Lincoln City contributions.

Raggett wrote his name into City folklore with his goal at Turf Moor and is cherished as a key member of the team that not only wrote its name into the FA Cup history books, but as a key part of the team that got the club back into the EFL and started their rise - he remains a cult hero at Sincil Bank to this day.