Michael Skubala is up for his fourth Manager of the Month award, and aiming to be the first Imps manager to win such an award since April 2018.
If he were to win, he’d be the first Imps manager to win the award for League One, but not the third tier. However, you’d have to go back to the early eighties for that.
Lincoln City Managers
I am absolutely astounded that Michael Appleton did not win a Manager of the Month award during his stupendously good 2020/21 season, even more so that Skubala didn’t win it in March 2024, bearing in mind we won four and drew one, scoring 17 goals in the process.
Appleton was nominated several times, but I find it astounding that he didn’t pick up the award. His first nomination came in January 2020, then more followed in October 2020, April 2021, and January 2022. On all four occasions, another manager won the award.
Danny Cowley was nominated several times, winning it a couple of times as well, whereas Mark Kennedy did not oversee a month deemed good enough to earn a nomination. Skubala is now going for his fourth award after February 2024, March 2024 and August 2024. The others saw him pipped each time.
Will this be the fourth time lucky?
Imps Manager of the Month Curse
While we do not believe in curses, obviously, the Manager of the Month has not been good to Lincoln City managers. Looking back as far as 1999, we have had the award on eight occasions and have only once won the next game. Even then, it came amidst a really tough spell.
Starting in October 1999 with John Reames, there’s evidence of a curse on Lincoln managers. He picked up five wins and a draw just before the turn of the century, including a 3-2 win at Orient and a 4-1 mauling of Chester City, with Barry Richardson saving a penalty. Starting November 2nd, we won once in the next 11. It’s possible the award was given before the 5-2 defeat against Mansfield Town, but it may have been before the 4-2 win against York City, our only home win between Welling (October 30th) and Hull (Jan 15th, 2000).
The first winner of this century was Keith Alexander in November 2004. We only played four games, three in the league, but we won all three – Northampton (3-2), Darlington (3-0) and Yeovil (3-1). We didn’t win again in 2004, losing in December against Macclesfield (2-1) and Wycombe (1-0) – both of those games saw the opposition score last-minute goals. We drew the other two matches 0-0, producing a single goal in 360 minutes of football.
Keith Alexander won the award again in February 2006, having won four games (Stockport 3-2, Torquay 2-0, Barnet 3-2 and Notts County 2-1) and drawn one (Macclesfield 1-1). After a break of 14 days, we drew 2-2 with Rushden before winning just one of the next seven. The one we won was 5-0 against Grimsby, though.
Next up for the award was Schoey in October 2006. We all remember this month, thrashing Barnet 5-0 away and putting seven past Rochdale as the highlights. There isn’t an exact date the award was given out, but we finished October by winning 1-0 at Swindon to go top of the table. We lost the next four, three in the league and one in the FA Cup. Another case of the curse?
Peter Jackson won the award twice. A cheeky little run in February 2008 saw us win five from six, pulling away from the foot of the table. It’s not 100% clear when the award was given, but I’m assuming it was around the 10th, meaning we won the next game, the 11th, against Notts County. However, we won three and lost four of the next seven. I never realised this, but after drawing 1-1 with Bury on New Year’s Day 2008, we didn’t draw another game all season.
Jacko was back among the winners in October 2008, winning five and drawing one of these six games featuring some of the Magnificent Seven. Highlights included beating Chesterfield 3-1 despite having ten men for the second half and winning 1-0 at Bournemouth. That set November up nicely; we lost five of the next seven, drawing the other two. One of those draws was against Mark Cooper’s Kettering in the FA Cup, one of the defeats against the same opponent. In fact, after winning the award, we won two of the next 14 matches. Ouch.
The next time we had a manager in the EFL Manager of the Month reckoning was December 2017, when King Cowley picked up the award. Five wins from six matches, including a 2-0 win at Yeovil and the 2-1 win against Forest Green when Rheady bagged a diving header, made Danny the obvious choice. On January 12th, he got his award, and on January 13th, we drew 2-2 with Notts County. We drew the next game as well, 1-1 at Barnet.
Finally (and criminally, in my opinion), the last time a Lincoln City manager won the award was in August 2018. It was Danny again after we got off to a blistering start in our title-winning season. We played five league games, won four, and drew one. I’m not sure whether crushing Swindon 4-1 or Notts County 3-1 was the best result, but it was a great run. Danny found out he’d won the award on September 7th, and on the eighth, we lost our first league match of the season against Crawley Town.
For the record, Ryan Lowe won it three times that season.
Conclusion
Of course, there’s no curse. There’s no such thing as curses. However, it is nice to think that if Michael Skubala does finally win it, whatever the outcome of the game on Saturday, he will be the first Imps manager since 2018 to take the award.
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