On Friday, Lincoln City could have gone up.
We needed to win, and other results needed to go our way. What happened was we did our part, just like Michael Skubala has been saying for weeks. We looked after ourselves, but those stubborn Stockport and Bolton players just didn’t read the script. They won, setting up a huge showdown today.
That’s where all eyes will be today. Cardiff fans will be hoping they share the points, and if they do, great, we don’t need to worry. Michael Skubala and the team will be focused on one thing and one thing only: the Madejski Stadium. If we avoid defeat, as we have in the last 23 fixtures, we go up.
If we lose, and Bolton and Stockport draw, we go up. Only if we lose on one of those win can we still be caught, and then the task will roll over to Saturday, Leyton Orient at home.
After getting very excited, convincing myself we’d go up on Friday, it all became a bit of an anti-climax. It’s odd, we won, and yet for hours after, I kept referring to the game as if we’d drawn. The fact that we didn’t get confirmed as a Championship side next season felt like a failure, but of course, it wasn’t. We did our bit, we got three points, we shifted onto 87, two more than we needed to win League Two in 2019.
Now, it isn’t Wimbledon, a midtable side standing in our way, but Reading, a promotion contender eager for three points. They have a big day ahead, they’re celebrating the anniversary of their 106-point season, hoping that they can capturew some of the spirit of ’06 to give them a leg up in their quest for a top six spot. It’ll be a bumper crowd, a big stadium, and just the sort of occasion we have thrived in.
Will we go up? I’m done with grand gestures. There will be no emotional outpouring about loss, grief, friendship and football this morning. I fell into that trap on Friday. I built up a moment that we did everything right in, and still it felt flat. No, we can celebrate when it is done and yes, it could be done this evening, but it might not be. It might rumble on for another week; we might be stuck in this horrible in-between world with one foot in one division and another across in the Championship.
All we can do is go to Reading in huge numbers, as we did at Cardiff. All we can do is repel a side in decent form, as we did at Cardiff. All we can do is avoid defeat, as we did against Port Vale, Barnsley, Blackpool, Cardiff, Stockport, Barnsley (again), Huddersfield, Peterborough, Luton, Burton, Bradford, Wigan, Plymouth, Bolton, Northampton, Mansfield, Blackpool (again), Cardiff, Exeter, Stockport (again), Huddersfield (again), Rotherham, and AFC Wimbledon.
Do that, and then we can celebrate, pour out all our emotions, cry, hug strangers, or whatever else it is you wish to do to celebrate a season like no other.
Then, and only then. Safe journey, City fans (not you, Dayle, not you).
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