How Fleetwood Town were promoted to the Football League in 2012 on back of a Jamie Vardy double and a 29-game unbeaten run

Jamie Vardy scores the first of his two goals as Fleetwood came back to draw with Lincoln City

In today’s nostalgia slot we look back to 2012 and Fleetwood Town’s rise into the Football League for the first time in their history.

FA Cup win at Northwich Victoria continued Blackpool resurgence in 1987

Town’s place in League Two was effectively sealed with a 2-2 home draw against Lincoln City on Friday, April 12, which stretched their unbeaten run to 29 games.

The promotion party would have to wait until the following evening, when second-placed Wrexham’s failure to defeat Grimsby Town made Fleetwood’s rise a mathematical certainty.

Town found themselves two goals down inside 20 minutes against Lincoln in the penultimate game of the season of Highbury, though it was fitting that two Jamie Vardy strikes should earn Fleetwood a share of the spoils and take the player of the year’s outstanding goal tally for the season to 34.

Lincoln were fighting for their lives at the other end of the table and were determined to ruin the Highbury party, taking the lead with Jamie Taylor’s eighth-minute shot before Jefferson Louis doubled their advantage with a header from a free-kick.

But Vardy gave Town a lifeline just before half-time, firing home on the rebound. And it took the striker just four minutes of the second half to equalise, capitalising on hesitation in the Imps’ defence.

This was the 38th of the future Leicester and England star’s 40 games for Fleetwood and the ninth in which he scored more than once.

Town proceeded to control the second half as Jamie McGuire headed wide and Gareth Seddon had a goal disallowed for offside.

Vardy had two chances to complete what would have been his third Fleetwood hat-trick, but he sliced a shot when through on goal and then saw an injury-time header saved by Joe Anyon.

Vardy’s goals that night proved to be Town’s last of the season as they lost their final two games – their first league defeats since October 11 – but it mattered not. Town finished five points clear at the top, sealing a fifth promotion in eight years.

Andy Pilley had taken control of the club in 2003, when they were in the North West Counties League, and he said: “I’m not only delighted for the club but for the town because it will create jobs. It was always my vision to see this club in the Football League.”

The club had only been formed in 1997, though previous incarnations dated back to the early years of the century.

Fleetwood team: Davies, Beeley, Goodall, Pond, McNulty, Cavanagh, Fowler, McGuire, Vardy, Mangan, Seddon