I did a walk around Sincil Bank yesterday, filming the ongoing work. It was nothing more – five minutes playing with my new smart glasses.
What has astounded me is the reaction to that and to the images we posted last week. Yesterday’s video has been watched more than 43,000 times, with more than 6,000 engagements (clicks, likes, etc). Our reels typically get a couple of thousand views and far fewer interactions.
The same went for the post we put out of the works last week. 47,000 views on the photos of the ground, 8,271 engagements. There is no doubt that the ground renovations are a hot topic this summer, and creating a huge amount of interest for supporters across the globe.
Literally, everything is being worked on. It surprises me because we know the South Park End is the big bit: the new fan zone, the building heading backwards, creating a new corporate area. What you don’t realise is that everything is changing. I started in the South Park / Sincil Bank corner, and not one section of the ground escaped the works. The GBM Stand is being painted, from the roof to the kerb, and the red and black looks incredibly smart. Each of the corners is open, with work going on inside the ground.
The Foundation Building at the rear of the Stacey West is having work carried out on the entrance, and the main vehicle entrance from Cross Street is currently being dug up for something. There is fencing, limited access, and it genuinely feels like a full construction site.
The Stacey West Stand is painted black, with just a white ‘W’ currently on the front. There’s work being done in the corner of the Stacey West and St Andrews Stands, not sure what. The club shop has been gutted, with work ongoing in there, and I couldn’t get down as far as the changing rooms thanks to fencing and more work. The club’s new Coffee Shop, the Clubhouse, was only accessible by a single walkway, but it was still busy, with very few tables available for people to sit down. On the back internal wall, a flash of green, scruffy metal, something that appears to be unfinished work, until you’re told it is reclaimed from the old Rilmac Stand. Keeping history alive, keeping the fabric of the ground entwined with the new areas.
The intended outside space is still stacks of pallets and materials, but this time next year, it should be a bustling community space with football on the astroturf and parents idling away their spare hours.
It’s Sincil Bank, Jim, but not as we know it.
Only, it is as we know it. It’s getting more than just a bit of a spruce up. It’s getting a facelift, an overhaul, a rebrand, a makeover of epic proportions, but it’s still Sincil Bank. The pitch still looked like a bright green ocean with the sun reflecting from it. The Greenlinc Renewables Stand stood awkwardly alone, as it has now for almost 40 years, uncomfortable in its footprint. The memorial wall, hidden behind scaffolding, still bears the names of those we have loved and lost. It’s still Sincil Bank, the place we call home.
What is it about Sincil Bank?
What is it about Sincil Bank that is sparking such interest? As I walked around yesterday, I tried to put my finger on it. As a ground, it’s nice, but it’s not in the same league as some we’ve been to, such as Home Park or the Cardiff City Stadium. Some might even say it’s not the Keepmoat or the New York Stadium. No, it is not, but to Lincoln City fans, it is more.
I always think back to the Faithless song, God is a DJ. The line ‘this is my church, this is where I heal my hurts’ always used to get me. Dance music didn’t do that for me, and as much as I love a gig, music in general doesn’t. My church has always been Sincil Bank. Dare I say, it feels like home. Players come and go, kits change, the custodians of the club change, but you and I, we’re always there. At the end of a hard period in your life, Sincil Bank awaits, arms open, evolving, but never truly changing.
Lincoln City are my club, and so obviously, the base for that club means something. Watching the grand old ground getting a facelift was incredible. Only seven grounds are as old or older in the Championship. Since 1895, it has played home to the Imps, so the saying ‘steeped in history’ really lands. However, it isn’t the history that interests me, it’s my history. That’s why these posts are popular, why you all want to see the changes, day by day. It’s your history that matters.
In those stands, there is still a bit of my Dad. Not literally, obviously, but as I walked down the side of the GBM Stand, I could picture him there. The last photo of him at the ground was taken outside that stand. It’s not just a little attachment to those we have lost, either, but to those living. The people we watch the game with, the people we used to watch the game with when we shift seats. Those we have a drink with in the fan zone, those whom we see in the media suite (that’s obviously more personal). Friends.
I enjoyed everything about school except the learning. I loved knowing lots of people, and having lots of people know you. I was enriched by the relationship I had with people from different backgrounds, and I think that is the same in the game. The difference is that the shared experience is not a hatred of learning but a love of Lincoln City. You realise years after that your school days are the best of your life and, minus the learning and teachers, that’s what football takes you back to, Community, casual friends, comfort.
Where is this rambling, over-emotional dialogue going? Let me use an analogy to guide you towards my conclusion (as I always do). It’s like your first car. You buy it because you want to get from A to B, but eventually, the memories you make become entwined with the car, not just where it takes you. The door that jams, the way it needs a special method to get started in the winter. The feel of the upholstery, the smell when you open the door (sour milk and vinegar in my first car, just to shatter the illusion of romance). None of it alone is particularly special, and yet when it comes to scrap it and move on, you feel like you’re removing a part of yourself. As the years trundle on, the memories of the physical make the memories of the times even more special.
Sincil Bank is like the first car you never get rid of. Early memories of football games are often from childhood or university, our formative years, which are always looked back on fondly. We go to watch Lincoln, and we meet people who enjoy football (maybe for the last decade, but not always) and just have a good time. The ground in which we do that is, for a while, perhaps inconsequential, but then it becomes so much more. It’s our home. Those bricks are our bricks, it’s our mortar, they’re our seats. It’s our vehicle providing the backdrop to our lifelong memories and, recalling a game against Grimsby in 2009, it sometimes smells of sour milk and vinegar.
When we win, we are ecstatic there, when we lose, we are desolate, but it’s always there, like a big constant, and a second chance. Every game we lost under Appleton at home, the next week the ground presented a new hope. I wonder how many times a daughter has said to a father, or a son to a mother, ‘I think we’ll win today’ as they see the towering stand ahead of them, sometimes bathed in warm sunshine, other times illuminated by one set of floodlights shining pitchwards, knowing there wasn’t a cat in hell’s chance we’d get a point.
Hope. Belief. That is what Sincil Bank stands for. That is what our home ground is a testament to. Because for every Appleton defeat, every Kennedy draw, every relegation and every tear, there is always next week. There is always hope.
Our hope this season will be wrapped in bright new paint, built upon with new areas, and different backdrops, but that is how it always is. My hopes in 2016/17 were enjoyed standing outside the Centre Spot bar, in a car park, smoking and drinking, surrounded by empty space. By 2018/19, it was in a fan zone and by 2026, it was in a packed fan village, big screen on, food options and no room to move. It was always at the Bank, but it evolved, it grew, and it became something altogether more, but the hope was always the same. I hope we win. I hope we score. I hope those I love enjoy it just as much as I do.
The type of hope changes, but hope never does. The aesthetics and facilities at the ground change, but what makes it Sincil Bank does not. That never changes, and that’s why we are so hungry to see what those changes look like.
That is why it might not look like Sincil Bank of old; it might not smell like Sincil Bank of old, but under the gloss and shine, it is still the grand old lady, standing proud at the base of the city, storing hope and belief for all who enter.
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