The magical rise of Lincoln City - on cusp of Championship return after 65 years away

Lincoln City are on the verge of promotion to the second tier for the first time since 1961.

Under Michael Skubala they are the runaway leaders in League One and could be promoted on Good Friday.

Sky Sports' Russ Taylor is a lifelong Lincoln City fan and he tells the story of how a rejuvenated Imps - still non-league as recently as 2017 - have been reborn...

'Apathy had spread through the city of Lincoln'

Ten years ago Lincoln City were about to finish their National League season with the unenviable record of one win in 10.

Not that many were paying attention in truth.

The nation's gaze was fixed on events down the A46 as Leicester City created the mother of all Premier League shocks.

Image: Soccer Saturday's Russ Taylor is a lifelong Lincoln fan and can regularly be heard celebrating Imps goals in the background of the show

That apathy had spread through the city of Lincoln. Attendances had regularly dipped below the 2,000 mark and most had accepted that in all likelihood the football club would be non-league property for the foreseeable future.

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Since relegation in 2011 from the Football League, the club had flirted with getting out of the National League, albeit, the wrong way, needing a final-day win at Hyde United to guarantee safely and avoid the ignominy of dropping into regional football.

Fans grew accustomed to a revolving door of new signings while watching their club be turned over at the likes of Carshalton and Whitehawk, to name a few. Attendees to those particular two games wear it as a badge of honour.

Many could be forgiven for instead keeping an eye on scores on Soccer Saturday rather than prolong any further torture.

So how has it come to the point where Lincoln and Tottenham fans are mutually singing about playing each other at the same level?

A South African businessman & two brothers from Essex turn the tide

It starts with a South African businessman called Clive Nates joining the board, captivated by the English game.

"My first game I watched us lose 2-0 at home to Welling," Nates tells Sky Sports. "I followed that up with a Tuesday night at Alfreton with 100 away fans. We drew 0-0. It was freezing!"

Within a year, the club had swapped trips to Alfreton for day trips to Arsenal led by two Essex brothers who would enter FA Cup folklore.

Image: Danny and Nicky Cowley brought Lincoln out of the National League

Enter Danny and Nicky Cowley.

The FA Cup run - where they won at Premier League side Burnley before being knocked out by Arsenal - to the quarter-finals in 2017 was a godsend for the club. And the £2m prize money allowed them to build the Elite Performance Centre Training base beside another Lincolnshire icon - The Red Arrows - rather than scratch around looking for patches of grass at local RAF bases.

But most crucially, the Cowley brothers instigated a return to the Football League the same season, sustained on a budget of half of that of their rival promotion contenders.

Suddenly a club stuck in a malaise had become one fuelled by momentum led by the relentless Cowleys. Fans fell back in love with Lincoln City.

Lincoln made it all the way to face Arsenal in the quarter-final of the FA Cup in 2017, then a non-league club

Image: Lincoln made it all the way to face Arsenal in the quarter-finals of the FA Cup in 2017, then a non-league club

What's the magic formula?

"Patience." Nates said. "We give managers time to get on with their job."

After the Cowleys departed, Micheal Appleton joined and took the club within a game of promotion to the Championship, losing 2-1 to Blackpool in front of a sparce crowd at Wembley stadium during the Covid-interrupted season in 2021, led by the inspired loan signings of Brennan Johnson and Morgan Rogers.

Most fans, myself included, thought that might have been the one-in-a-million opportunity gone.

The Skubala era begins as he pushes Lincoln to next level

Image: Michael Skubala has won multiple awards as he pushes Lincoln towards promotion

Mark Kennedy followed in the dugout before Lincoln appointed another manager who had honed his trade through the teaching industry in Michael Skubala, who had been part of Leeds United's coaching set-up.

"Under Skubala the club had finished seventh, then 11th, but there was no pressure to go up. Michael knew he had time," said Nates.

What he doesn't respectfully have is the greatest budget. Lincoln operate with a budget that would place them in the bottom eight of League One. But the fact belies this season's reality.

Lincoln City last lost a league game in November. They have the most wins (25), fewest defeats (five), the best defence (34 conceded) and the most goals (74).

That latter stat is perhaps a microcosm of the team ethic of the side. There is no one 20-goal man leading the Imps' charge.

Instead the goals have been shared around the team with only one player, Reeco Hackett, achieving double figures this season (10). But no less than 18 different players have found the net.

Defensively the team is built around an experienced back four with players who have all who all have League One 'know-how' and have experience of being promoted from League One, led by captain Tendayi Darikwa who captained Wigan to the title back in 2021.

Goalkeeper George Wickens, plucked from Fulham's bench, has eight clean sheets in his last 12 games, while the side is chiefly made up of players deemed surplus to requirements by other Football League sides.

The outlier is refugee and Ukraine U21 international Ivan Varfolomeev, who was spotted by the club's detailed and complex scouting system playing in the Czech top flight.

And this is where Lincoln have to excel. Finding diamonds in the rough, so to speak. The League of Ireland is also a fruitful source of talent.

Low possession and high tempo has defined Lincoln's promotion run

Image: Freddie Draper has scored eight goals for Lincoln this season

What is interesting is that Lincoln have the lowest average possession in League One (roughly 40 per cent) but this does not mean they are a long-ball team.

Instead they are set up to lure opposition teams in, win possession and launch quickfire raids - utilising a forward line full of pace, and capped by the direct running of Irishman Jack Moylan, who has caught the eye of a number of opposition managers this season.

A potent weapon has been the long throws of Tom Hamer, as have the set-pieces of the club. So much so that Rangers signed Lincoln City's set-piece coach Scott Fry earlier in the season. But the chances and most pertinently - the goals - have kept coming.

As have the fans. Games at Sincil Bank have been 10,000-plus sell-outs for some time now meaning over 10 per cent of the City's entire population are crammed into the LNER stadium on match-day.

And the atmosphere now is rightly bouncing, led by the fans of the 617 Squadron - named after the famous Dambusters who hailed from the County.

Kids are wearing Lincoln shirts again around the county

Lincoln is a relatively small city but with big ambitions. Home to a Cathedral that was once the tallest building in the world - it's no longer a unknown place sandwiched 'somewhere near Nottingham'.

It's a club that has captured the imagination and hearts of the wider county. A place where players and staff will stop to talk to supporters in the local supermarkets and know the importance and role they have to the city and its proud people.

What's so pleasing is the amount of children who wear Lincoln City shirts now around the county. My son Laurie is two and all he's known is success as a Lincoln City fan. So that's him captured!

But the enjoyment and euphoria of this magical season is brought about because of the struggles the club has endured over countless years.

Because of the times in recent history where it looked like the club would slip into obscurity forever. Generations of Imps fans have grown old never having had the chance to witness what we are witnessing right now.

For perspective, the last time Lincoln City played in the second tier of English football was in 1961 - The Beatles hadn't even released their first song and a pre-match pint would give you change from 10p.

That same 1960/61 season, they hosted Liverpool in the League, managed by a certain Bill Shankly. Fast-forward 65 years and Imps fans could be about to witness their third league title in just 10 years.

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Evolution rather than revolution - the Lincoln City way

What's so pleasing is they've done it organically and carefully. Set in motion by a magical FA Cup run in 2017 that started with a goalless draw at home to Guiseley.

Since then via steady progression under on and off the field, the club is now about to be one step away from the Premier League.

And the club's 'David versus Goliath' appeal has meant that investment has flooded in from the USA, backed now by millionaire chairman Ron Fowler, who has swapped Major League Baseball for Lincoln City.

Not that this will cause the club to deviate from its steady progression which has made it successful.

"We have sanity here and we will continue to have sanity," Fowler says tellingly.

His first plans were to improve the fan experience at the football club before potential big-money signings. Evolution rather than revolution. The Lincoln City way.

And if I'd told those hardy hundred or so Lincoln City fans stood on a windswept Alfreton terrace that in 10 years they would be playing in the second tier, the ever-present Nates sums it neatly up: "Not a chance! Not in a million years. But that's the magic of the football pyramid."

As a Lincoln City fan all my cognitive life, it's wonderful to be part of that magic.

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