78.3% Chance Lincoln City Will Survive In The Championship Based On History

People are already writing Lincoln City off in the Championship. Internally, the club talks about competing and not being there for a ride.

Externally, there is a fear we might find ourselves out of our depth.

There is no reason why we would. We were better than Cardiff and Bolton last season, two sides that we will face in 2026/27. Their football, possession-based, relying on technical quality, didn’t get a single win against us, and they’ll be trying the same against sides better equipped to beat them. Sure, we’ll be a little more direct, a little tougher to beat, but we are not going from trying to match sides like-for-like.

History is on our side. Oxford, a similar side, elevated to the Championship through the play-offs after a half-decent season, survived for a campaign. Plymouth, promoted as champions of League One after being unfancied, survived for a season. Teams going up and coming straight back down are not all that common. In fact, only Wigan (promoted 2022, relegated 2023) of the last 12 promoted teams has come straight back down.

As the season draws closer, with just 15 days until we face Middlesbrough, what does history tell us about promoted teams?

I know history is not a way of defining anything for sure. However, since the Championship became the Championship in 2004/05, 13 of 60 teams that could be relegated after a single season have been, which is less than 22%. When you consider that in two of the 20 seasons, four from six went down, the numbers actually look heavily in our favour.

Here is another kicker: only one team won League One and finished bottom the year after: Wigan Athletic in 2022/23, the last side to be relegated after being promoted the season before. In fairness, history does appear to be on our side. Is it momentum, winning games and keeping a settled side, capable of executing the game plan they won their division with? I’d say so, but it does bode well from an historic point of view when it comes to us next season.

Many people have suggested the biggest test comes in the second season, when you’re a Championship side, still bottom-end budget, but now with three more teams with momentum to battle against. The numbers back that up: more than 38% of promoted teams go down in their second season, and when you look at the names, there is a pattern. Rotherham, Peterborough, Blackpool, Scunthorpe, and Colchester. They’re some of the sides dropping out after two seasons, and they’re all clubs of a similar size to us, with recent League Two experience. Sure, Colchester are League Two now, and Scunthorpe are in the National League, but you could argue that when they were promoted to the second tier, they were very Lincoln City.

When you expand that to three seasons, the chances of the drop go up to almost 50%. Often, the clubs that last beyond the three seasons are the big players: Sheffield United, Ipswich Town, Sunderland, Wolves, Blackburn and Norwich City. The sides dropping into League One that shouldn’t be there.

The issue, of course, is as much around parachute payments as anything. A bigger club, like those mentioned above, perhaps have the means to compete in a world where everyone else has parachute payments, because they get 20,000 or 30,000 supporters. Doncaster Rovers, Oxford United, Peterborough United and the like (our like) do not. Each year, three clubs drop into the Championship with massive budgets and blow the smaller ones away.

You could argue that clubs like Coventry City do well to survive without parachute payments, while some clubs, like Leicester City and Luton Town, blow there, but generally, the financial landscape of the Championship is unforgiving. Generally, the so-called smaller clubs, which include us, can leverage momentum and consistency for a season, maybe two, but by the time the third season comes around, it can get horribly difficult.

What we need to be able to do is leverage our inner Brentford (2013/14), Millwall (2016/17), and Preston (2014/15) to find a way to compete. While fans of those clubs will argue they’re much bigger than Lincoln, they’re sides we have faced relatively regularly over my lifetime, sides who hadn’t had top-flight football, who have found a way to beat the three-season cycle.

Dare I say, if we do avoid becoming one of the ‘straight-back-down’ brigade, then we’ll certainly consider that a success. History is on our side, so perhaps pundits shouldn’t be quite so quick to write off Lincoln City.