Name: Berthold Allan Couldwell Hall
Seasons Played: 1931/32-1932/33
Position: Centre-forward
Date of Birth: 29.03.1908
Died: 09.02.1983
Birthplace: Deepcar, Sheffield
League Debut: 29.08.1931, Darlington (h), Div 3N
League Games: 72
League Goals: 64
Career: Park Labour (Sheffield), Doncaster Rovers, Middlesbrough, Bradford City, LCFC, Tottenham Hotspur, Blackpool, Gainsborough Trinity.

Allan Hall signed for the Imps in May 1931 at the age of 23 having previously played for Doncaster Rovers (22 goals from 30 League appearances), Middlesbrough (2 from 7) and Bradford City (4 from 11) and it's safe to say he marked his arrival at Sincil Bank in style!

In his first season with City he claimed 56 goals in 50 first team appearances, including League, cup ties, friendlies and two games against Wigan Borough which were expunged from the record books when the club folded mid-season.

He also netted 23 times from his 32 League games the following season and such prowess in front of goal inevitably attracted the interest of top sides and Hall moved to Tottenham Hotspur in the summer of 1933 for a then club record sale of £3,000.

He later played for Blackpool and Gainsborough Trinity where he scored 207 goals in 209 games whilst during the Second World War he returned to play for City as a guest, scoring 10 goals in 29 games.

Hall's record goalscoring achievements in 1931/32 saw him net a club record 41 League goals from his 40 games and is a record that could well stand for many years to come. Certainly most clubs these days are happy if they can find a striker who can score 20 goals in a campaign!

Until the 1960s all the record books showed Hall as having scored 41 however, for some reason, that figure appeared to grow to 42 over the years.

The 1972 Book of Football and the annual Rothman's yearbooks all show the higher figure and any hope that the club's own Centenary book of 1983 would solve the puzzle were dashed when page eight told us it was 42 goals but six pages later we were back to 41!

The mystery only really came to light in 1991 when Gary Parle wrote an article for City fanzine Deranged Ferret explaining why 41 was in fact the correct figure.

After extensive research at the Central Library Gary produced a record of the season's results which appeared to confirm that Allan Hall had in fact scored a grand total of 47 competitive goals in the 1931/32 season: 41 in the League, two in the annulled matches against Wigan Borough and four in the FA Cup.

In the following issue of Deranged Ferret, club historian Ian Nannestad replied setting out the reason why 42 was actually the correct figure. Ian pointed out that the original newspaper reports that Hall had scored a single goal in the 1932 New Year's Day fixture at Accrington Stanley, from which Gary had produced his statistics, had later been corrected and Hall had been credited with both goals. As a result the higher figure of 42 was the true record.

And there the matter lay for almost 11 years.

In the summer of 2002, with the Imps in Administration, Roger Bates, the founding editor of Deranged Ferret, produced a compilation of some of the articles published in issues 1 to 12 of the Ferret to help raise funds for the club. Included in the Best of Deranged Ferret was Ian Nannestad's article.

Then, in November 2002, Roger received a letter from Martin Hall, the son of Allan, and included in the letter was a copy of a logbook his father, who died in February 1983, had kept during the 1931/32 season.

Hall's own record showed that he scored 41 goals but the mystery deepened when his entry for the Accrington Stanley match was checked. Hall had indeed credited himself with both goals as Ian Nannestad said was the case. So, if Hall was only claiming 41 goals, what was the explanation for the extra goal that the record books claim he scored?

A comparison between the records drawn from the local Lincoln papers of the day and Hall's own logbook soon showed the game in question to be the 1931 Christmas Day clash at Chester. The story goes something like this...

With 1930's public transport poor at the best of times and non-existent on a Public Holiday no Lincoln fans took leave of their family Christmas to travel to Chester. For the same reason none of the local papers send a reporter.

The game takes place on a wet and muddy pitch and the players are soon hard to recognise, especially for the home fans that are unfamiliar with the City team. City win a penalty! "Who is that taking the penalty?" ask the reporters from the Chester Chronicle and Chester Observer. They decide it must be leading goalscorer Allan Hall and so it appears in their match reports of a 2-1 home win.

The following day Chester travel to Sincil Bank for the return fixture and Hall grabs a hat-trick as the Imps cruise to a 4-0 win. In the press box the home reporters swap tales with their Chester colleagues. "Who got our goal yesterday?" they ask. "Allan Hall with a penalty" they are reliably informed and so it appears in the Lincoln press the following day.

But what did Allan Hall record in his logbook when he sat by the Christmas tree in his Lincoln home after the long journey back from Cheshire? Sure enough he recorded that it was a penalty but the thing was that Hall didn't take penalties for Lincoln: George Whyte did, and it is George's name that Hall recorded as the scorer in his book.

If further evidence were needed that Allan Hall did indeed net 41 League goals in that record-breaking season it comes from two sources.

Firstly, the Lincolnshire Chronicle 1932 promotion supplement which, as well as showing Allan Hall as having scored 41, credits George Whyte with eight goals. This figure tallies with that recorded by Hall in his log.

Secondly 'Cock o' the North' written by Benny Dix credits Hall with 41 goals and Whyte with eight, of which three are shown as being penalties. Hall is not credited with any penalties. Again these figures all tally with Hall's log.

So, after more than 70 years in which the true tally of one of City's greatest ever goalscorers has remained unclear, we believe we can finally say that Allan Hall's haul was 41 League goals. Either way, it's still a record and one that perhaps may never be broken.

Profile adapted from an original article by Roger Bates that appeared in the official Lincoln City FC match day programme, 03.05.2003.