Michael Appleton has opened up about his decision to leave Lincoln City, revealing that Clive Nates wanted him to stay, but the demands of his final season had left him drained.
Speaking to Gab Sutton’s EFL Debate, Michael broached a number of subjects, and it is well worth a listen.
Our former boss departed after the 2021/22 campaign, with City finishing 17th in League One just a year after reaching the play-off final. For supporters, it was a difficult season to make sense of, as a side that had come so close to the Championship struggled to reproduce the football that had taken us to Wembley.
However, speaking about his departure, Michael has outlined the circumstances away from the pitch that accompanied that decline. A new baby, lengthy journeys between Lincoln and Manchester, and his cancer diagnosis all came during a period when he was also trying to rebuild his team.
“Even when I left, and I think they’ve spoken about it anyway, it was my decision. I’m not going to lie.
“I remember Clive flying over and basically saying, ‘We don’t want you to leave.’ But there were just so many things happening.”
Michael had arrived at Sincil Bank in September 2019, taking on the considerable challenge of following Danny Cowley. Within six months, the pandemic had interrupted his first season, and it also changed the living arrangements he and his wife had put in place when he took the job.
“Myself and my wife Jess, we had a child, Ned. When we first went to Lincoln, we both moved over there. Then obviously COVID hit, so my wife moved back to Manchester. I was in a place in Lincoln, in a flat of my own.
“Then Ned arrived not too long after that, and I just found myself doing five-hour round trips every day.”
It is something worth remembering when we look back at his time here. We saw the team selections, the performances and the interviews, but those were only part of what he was dealing with, particularly during that final campaign.
The footballing challenge alone was significant. City had finished fifth and beaten Sunderland over two legs to reach Wembley, but the reliance on loan players meant that maintaining that standard would require another successful summer of recruitment.
“That final season was just so tough mentally for me. We lost in the play-off final. Five of our starting XI were loan players. None of those players were at the club the following season, certainly at the start of the season anyway.
“There was a massive rebuild that had to happen. We had a new child. Obviously my wife had moved back to Manchester. Then I got the testicular cancer on top of that.”
His diagnosis was made public in July 2021, during preparations for the new season, with surgery scheduled to remove the tumour. At the time, the club made clear that his health came first and that he would be given the time he needed to recover, with the coaching staff continuing the pre-season work in his absence.
That was the backdrop to a campaign many of us remember largely for its frustrating afternoons at Sincil Bank. The contrast was particularly cruel: much of the football we had enjoyed the previous season had been played behind closed doors, while our return to the stands coincided with a far less convincing side.
I wrote previously about how that affected the way Michael’s time here was viewed. Supporters had missed out on sharing so much of the good stuff in person, then found themselves watching a team struggle at home, but his account makes clear how much that same period was taking out of him.
“There were just so many things that happened in that last season where, by the end of it, I was just drained.
“I remember going to have my LMA medical, and she just said, ‘Michael, you need a break. You need a break, even if it’s just for a couple of months.'”
That advice came before the season had finished. The need to step away was already apparent while he was still working to see City through the campaign, rather than being a conclusion reached simply because of where we ended up in the table.
“This was before the end of the season. It wasn’t as if we’d had a poor season. She just said, ‘You need a break anyway.’
“It was difficult enough trying to rebuild. I had such a really good side the year before. But to have all the other stuff that was going on off the field, it was tough.”
There were legitimate footballing criticisms of that final season, and these comments do not mean critical supporters have to pretend they enjoyed it. I wasn’t upset that we went in a different direction at the end of the campaign, but that never changed my view of Michael as a person, or my appreciation of what his best Lincoln side had achieved.
What his account does offer is a fuller understanding of why he felt he had reached the end of his time here. He was trying to keep a League One team moving forward while recovering from cancer, adjusting to life with a new baby and spending hours on the road, and eventually he needed a break.
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