I had to write last night, and while the football world churns out Lincoln City content today, I may not get to focus quite as much on the site as I should.
I woke this morning as if falling asleep, back into a great dream I’d been having. Do you ever have that? Dream something great, wake momentarily, half-dazed, then drop back to sleep and into the same dream. I do, but this time it was the sleep that was a half-dazed moment, and the dream that it appears is an occurring reality.
As the sun shines on Tuesday, April 7th, a team celebrates a third-tier promotion at the earliest stage in a season since before the war. A team of fighters, a team constructed and styled over two-and-a-half years. How that’s happened, why it has happened, that will unfold here over the coming days. You’ll get the expert analysis, the opinion, the numbers, all of it. Once the eyes of the football world shift to other clubs or the title, we’ll be left in this little pond of liquid gold, swimming around and enjoying every single second.
What does this morning look like? The Stacey West team are busy, the group chats buzz with talk of ITV (they’re coming to my house), talkSPORT (twice at present), BBC Five Live (Ben live and direct), Radio Lincolnshire (everyone, I think), a podcast at 7 pm, and a live show to plan for Saturday. We’re going to be on the airwaves more than Romesh Ranganathan, and that is saying something. It might be fleeting, but it isn’t uncommon in times of success, and we’ll enjoy every second.
The team will have a day off today. I think that’s probably for the best, given the reports of some singing in Stack. Unlike many of you, they’ll be back to work tomorrow, while I know a lot of supporters will be there today, walking around their offices singing Allez Allez, quietly seeking out anyone they know who likes football to relive the moment. The joy of those stolen few minutes in a toilet cubicle, sitting down, seat down, trousers up, just scrolling and pretending to need a break. Just to relive yesterday some more.
I can’t wait to get stuck into gushing articles about recruitment and key players. I will enjoy looking at possible opponents next season, their strengths and weaknesses, plotting trips to new grounds. The excitement of looking at everything, from top to bottom, and assessing how it went right, from culture to commercial, from the fans’ perspective to player fitness. It’s going to be a whirlwind, and already we’re all swirling around in it, wondering where it might take us (The Championship, that’s where it is taking us).
For now, it’s an initial excitement, and I think my first thought this morning (after half an hour sorting through emails, WhatsApp, Twitter DMs and the like) was probably different to most. I made myself a cup of tea, sat down and looked at my EFL Panini 2025/26 album on the table, half-filled (swaps wanted).
Next season, for the first time in sticker history, we’re going to have a full double-paged spread, each player with their own sticker. I’ve collected Panini stickers since 1986 (not every season0. I’ve collected every Lincoln City sticker, the odd one in an album of 500, Matt Carbon (1995), team photo from 1982, stuff like that. Next season, no more doubles, no more ‘one star player’, and rightly so, because we are a team that doesn’t have a star player. We have 20.
Better get those spaces ready, Panini!
Up the Imps.
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