Sam Clucas says there was “no bitterness” when his Lincoln City return ended, describing the chance to represent his hometown club again as a “massive honour”.
The midfielder returned to Sincil Bank in January 2025, making eight appearances and scoring once before leaving at the end of the season. His goal directly from a corner at Mansfield offered a glimpse of his quality, but the regular run of games many of us hoped to see never materialised.
We covered the debate around his absence from the side at the time, and I was among those disappointed we did not see more of him. For Clucas himself, however, coming home also brought a pressure that went beyond earning a place in the team.
“I put a lot on myself because it’s a big decision to sign for your hometown,” he told Championship Lowdown in a podcast released on Wednesday.
“When you go out on a Saturday night after a game and you see all your mates, I know if I have a rubbish game, I’m going to hear it from everybody because I’ve lived in Lincoln all my life.
“So it’s a big pressure move. I put a lot of pressure on myself and I really wanted to do well. And I would have loved to have been involved in the team that got them into the Championship, but it wasn’t to happen.”
That last admission will resonate with anyone who wanted his second spell to have a happier ending. Clucas had already played in the Premier League with Hull City and Swansea City, but helping the Imps reach the Championship would clearly have carried a significance of its own.
His departure also prompted plenty of discussion about how the move had worked out. Clucas’s own assessment makes clear how much the opportunity meant to him, even though it did not develop as he had hoped.
“There was no bitterness there really at the end. It was just a massive honour for me to have a chance to come back and play for Lincoln.
“I’ve still got really good relationships with people at Lincoln. Like you said, I was actually in there the other day, just went in to see the coaching staff, Tom Shaw and that, and said hello and popped in and done a bit of training there last week with the under-18s. They let me go and train with the under-18s to keep fit while I was just in between clubs training.”
His recent visit to see Tom and the staff, and the opportunity to train with the youngsters, show those relationships have continued beyond his playing contract. There is also an affection for the place that stretches back to his first spell as a young player.
When his deal ended in 2025, the club made it clear that a pathway into coaching had been offered, but Clucas wanted to continue playing. He subsequently joined Shrewsbury Town under Michael Appleton, and has now explained why he felt moving on was the right decision for his career at that point.
“To touch on the Lincoln thing a little bit there. They made an offer for me to stay around the place and be part of it, but again it was the time where under the current management there and stuff, I felt that it wasn’t right for my playing career at the time, just from what had happened the season before, obviously.
“I still had the desire to carry on playing and obviously having that six months playing for Lincoln and the odd appearance that I made and the appearances that I made, I knew that I could still play football at a good level and still had the hunger and desire to carry on playing. Wasn’t ready to really give that up totally as of yet. So yeah, they were good to me.”
I still think it is a shame we did not get to see more of Clucas in an Imps shirt, but timing and style just didn’t quite align. Michael Skubala shaped a side that won League One a year later, while Clucas has been able to keep playing, which is his current aim.
I’ve had a sneak preview of the podcast, and it’s a banger: he addresses his early years with the Imps, his full career, and goes into more depth about his return and departure.
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