It’s 9 am here now. My alarm has gone off, I’m watered and at my laptop, thinking not about today, but one week from now.
In precisely 168 hours, I will be putting my red and white socks on, watching the match prediction short on our Instagram and heading to Wragby to give Dad the red flowers I have been laying on his grave for the last few weeks. Then it might be breakfast in the Corn Dolly, and off to the game, the game that could become an eternal memory in Lincoln City’s season.
You’ll have your rituals. Maybe you have a favourite cafe or pub. Maybe you have a pair of pants you’ve been wearing for every game, or a T-shirt of some description. You might have a ritual for a loved one who will only be at the game in spirit, rather than watching from the stands. Exactly one week from now, I guarantee they’ll be popping into your head as you go through your ritual.
Maybe, as Good Friday threatens to become something that the word good can’t possibly begin to do justice to, I’ll see the robin that we have nesting in the garden. It might be the sixth most common garden bird in the UK, sure to be nesting within a few hundred feet of almost every home, but a part of me wants to believe every time one settles on the windowsill of the office that it’s my Dad, eager to get the Lincoln City news from my laptop screen before everyone else.
Easter is so often a key time for a football supporter. The obvious Easter this draws parallels with is Easter 2017, a midtable side at home on the Friday and a half-decent, play-off chasing side away four days later. All eyes will be on us to get our job done and, if we can, then on our phones to see if Plymouth and Wycombe can help us out.
It’s impossible not to think about Wimbledon in the same vein as Torquay. The Wombles are 14th, and the Gulls finished 17th that season. In fairness, they were 22nd when they flew into the Bank, but had improved sufficiently to end up comfortable in mid-table. We were on the back of one league defeat in 14, with six wins in seven, and yet we were poor. We looked leggy, but with that Lincoln team, as now, you always felt there was something. 1-0 down with eight minutes to play, it always felt like maybe we could come back.
Cue Adam Marriott, the forgotten hero of the game, coming on and playing a role in Harry Anderson’s leveller. Then he added to the joy by winning a free kick on the edge of the area, which Sam Habergham smashed into the goal. I’ll never forget Marriott grabbing the ball out of the net and booting it high into the stands as Sincil Bank erupted.
Then, Easter Monday, goosebumps as I think about writing the words. Again, poor against Gateshead, a side with play-off aspirations, as Reading have. They lost heavily on Good Friday, 3-0 against Sutton, but were sure to be stubborn opposition. They netted after 30 minutes from the spot, a sure penalty dispatched with ease. We huffed and we puffed, but the house wouldn’t come down, and for one hour, we waited nervously.
The truth? Without a win against Gateshead, we’d still go up. Maybe not clinched against Macclesfield, but lose that game and we don’t draw against Maidstone and Southport, but that’s the comfort of hindsight. Without a win on Good Friday, without a point at Reading, we probably still go up this season, but it’s about moments, and Gateshead away gave us those moments.
The penalty wasn’t contentious; Fyfield correctly adjudged to have handled Sean Long’s cross and Matt Rhead finishes comfortably. That’s 90 minutes, a point would have been decent, but Danny Cowley’s side had character, just as Michael Skubala’s has. It was written in the stars back then, but it came from hard graft, organisation and belief. Partly, it came from the head of Matt Rhead and the exquisite skills of Nathan Arnold, twisting to fire home a goal that went toe-to-toe with his Ipswich strike for my favourite of a historic season.
That was Easter. Nothing won and lost, Tranmere kept their side of the bargain by winning at Guiseley after a 2-2 draw at Aldershot on Good Friday, but we still sealed it a week later. It was still the one Easter that really sticks out in my mind, because we had a task, we stuck to it, and despite not quite being on it, we got the job done.
Of course, this weekend will be different. At the time of writing, we don’t know if we’ll be watching Stockport’s result or not. First and foremost, as with Torquay, we have a job to do against a decent Wimbledon side. If we get a goal, all eyes will be on Bolton. If we’re drawing, then there are three games to look out for, but the vibe will be the same.
Promotion will hang in the air, waiting to be grabbed. Every home fan will have a belief in the pit of their stomach, they’ll have that inescapable truth that the Championship is closer than it has been since 1961, that promotion from the third tier is there for the first time since 1952. The real truth is that promotion from the third tier to the second in a traditional four-division structure is within the grasp of Lincoln City for the first time ever.
And it all kicks off a week from today.
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