How to Make Friends and Influence People is the name of a great album by Terrorvision, but it is also seemingly the title that best describes Lincoln City right now.
Henrik Pedersen is coming down to meet Jez George, and the influencing continues as Chesterfield now target a Lincoln City-esque rise through the divisions.
The Spireites are a similar-sized club to us, able to push upwards of 8,000 during times of success, but a team that has spent a few too many years on the outside looking in. They are reported to have a similar budget to us, although in the division below, that is probably not a flex, and if they are to learn from our influence, they will need to curb that.
They are keen to understand what we have done, and how we have done it, as are most of the teams in the Football League. Some will continue to blindly throw money at it and hope it works, but Chesterfield CEO John Croot understands that, in order to replicate success, you have to learn from it.
“Lincoln City is a club which has developed enormously since they came out of the National League themselves,” he said at a recent fans’ forum, as reported by the Derbyshire Times. “They have got stability off the pitch as well as on it and that is key.”
I find it amusing listening to everyone who believes they understand what has been key for us, when so many factors have come into play and aligned. However, you cannot argue with stability off the pitch being a major part of success, the foundations upon which promotions are built.
“I know their CEO (Liam Scully) very well over many years and he has got plenty of innovative ideas for how we can do it,” added Croot. “Their history is similar to ours in that they have had supporter involvement really heavily, so as a benchmark it is something that we would like to work towards.”
Sheffield Wednesday and Chesterfield have openly said it, whereas the media around other clubs, such as Mansfield, hint at it. The Stags and the Spireites are the same size as us, or at least our starting point, and they will look at what we have achieved and wonder how they can do it. It is only natural.
I do not think there is one key factor, one thing that you could point to and say “that’s it”, because our success is made up of many factors, and over the next week or two, I shall try to explain what those factors are and why they are important.
I might even get a few clicks from IP addresses in Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire.