We DO NOT want another Fulham situation... | Page 3 | Vital Football

We DO NOT want another Fulham situation...

oldgaurd said:
The difference is that this opportunity does not feel like a once in blue moon stab at succes for me .It feels like we have momentum and if we experience failure during Sunday we will just go at again in a stronger position next season .
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In view of the make up of next season's League 1 (to include Sheffield Wednesday) and if we were not to succeed on Sunday in our quest for promotion, I would be interested to know how you would rate us for automatic promotion next year?
 
As long as MA is in charge I would except us to be top 6 again also be interesting to see what the american investor is going to put into the club.

Without MA could be a different story.
 
Warrington Imp said:
As long as MA is in charge I would except us to be top 6 again also be interesting to see what the american investor is going to put into the club.

Without MA could be a different story.
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Thanks for your input, and I agree with your sentiment. Just out of interest, do you think we'll be in League 1 next season?
 
Top 10 would be impressive to be frank, and should not necessarily be seen as a backward step.

We could have around ten new players to bed in; including attracting a commensurate level of loan signings. The threat of a salary cap has been removed and with that there will be half a dozen 'big' clubs looking to splash the cash. Law of averages says they cannot all be hopelessly mismanaged........ again. I would be very happy, but somewhat surprised to be proven wrong.

I'm sure the target would be play offs though, given as I understand MAPP was aiming for mid table this season.
 
hulloutpost said:
Top 10 would be impressive to be frank, and should not necessarily be seen as a backward step.

We could have around ten new players to bed in; including attracting a commensurate level of loan signings. The threat of a salary cap has been removed and with that there will be half a dozen 'big' clubs looking to splash the cash. Law of averages says they cannot all be hopelessly mismanaged........ again. I would be very happy, but somewhat surprised to be proven wrong.

I'm sure the target would be play offs though, given as I understand MAPP was aiming for mid table this season.
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Upper middle if I am not mistaken. That is why I travel to Wembley more in hope than expectation. I am happy that we reached the play offs but would be fairly gutted if we were to fail a seventh time.
 
Impalex said:
In view of the make up of next season's League 1 (to include Sheffield Wednesday) and if we were not to succeed on Sunday in our quest for promotion, I would be interested to know how you would rate us for automatic promotion next year?
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I think we would be a good bet for the play offs next year at the least . We have locked horns with some notable opposition this season and once we shook off the 'big team opposition ' mentality that saw us get a couple of hidings we did good. A small squad hindered things .This is something that I think will have to be rectified next season regardless of status . Yes I'm optimistic Impalex .
 
oldgaurd said:
I think we would be a good bet for the play offs next year at the least . We have locked horns with some notable opposition this season and once we shook off the 'big team opposition ' mentality that saw us get a couple of hidings we did good. A small squad hindered things .This is something that I think will have to be rectified next season regardless of status . Yes I'm optimistic Impalex .
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Great response. I agree about the 'small squad' too.
 
PWould said:
Had my once in a lifetime brush with the law that night at Craven Cottage. Along with many other imps I was singing at the top of my voice Macdonalds a walker as he strode on to the pitch before the match. ( I do have a particularly loud voice , particularly when following the imps) This after he had been bad mouthing us as a club in the local and national press. A couple of bobbies decided to make an example of me and I was frogmarched to a police hut where they questioned me for what seemed like ages and threatened to arrest me . They then threw me out and told me never to darken the old ground again. Even though I was a poor student at the time, I used a separate entrance and paid to get back in again. The only time in my whole life I had paid twice to watch a football game.
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Top man !! Respect
 
cherryexile said:
Has anyone else been in a status of suspended denial until now? Earlier on in the season, I thought we had a chance of automatic promotion and as that faded (before re-emerging to taunt us in the run in), I reconciled myself to our fate as play-off contenders. Beating Sunderland was a pressure boil burst and the release of tension is a wave I have ridden until this evening. I am now at the point where reality is setting around my feet. We are, potentially, only 90 minutes away from a return to the second tier of English football.

In response, I find myself checking the usual sources for news that will shape my view of what will happen on Sunday. And there isn't any. No 'mystery illness' striking down the Blackpool players. No 'imminent financial collapse' of our opponents. No 'everyone is really clear that Blackpool have already achieved their goals and will only be turning up for a kick-around'.

It seems that it is a finely balanced contest, which could go either way, and that there are no guarantees about how the scales will tip.

And this matters because it matters so much.

The QF defeat against Arsenal was the inevitable happening later than expected. The League 2 play-off defeat was an early opportunity glossed over by the EFL win. The EFL win wouldn't have have been too hard to swallow if it hadn't happened; it was a day out, Lincoln's first appearance at Wembley and we still had a shout at the play-offs. Last season was a dead rubber, but a promising renewal of the brand under MAP.

This is different. This could be a once in a generation opportunity (I know it is twice in a lifetime for many of us, but that only emphasises the distance between them) to reach heights that only a few of us have seen Lincoln play at before. It really is the biggest game since Fulham in 1982, but the prize available makes it bigger still.

I would argue that it is the biggest game in the history of Lincoln City Football Club. It is a game we can win and a game we can lose. The coin is in the air and who knows where it will fall.

I am getting tenser by the hour. Nervous. Exhilarated. Frustrated at the down time.

For a change, it is great that we are here, but it isn't enough. We have to win. HAVE TO. For crying out loud, we have been the epitome of the lower league club, bubbling about in the fourth tier of English football, surviving on the memory of a 45 year old success as Division 4 Champions.

Now we are not. Now we are Crewe. We are Shrewsbury. We are Grimsby ffs. Smaller clubs stretching themselves to cling on in the second tier long beyond when they should have fallen away. We have the potential to emulate the yo-yo Peterboroughs and Rotherhams. We can splash around in the big pool for the first time in 60 years.

I was going to apologise for the introspection. For the Kerouac spewing. But I shouldn't. We shouldn't need to apologise for anything Lincoln.

We are Lincoln. We are Lincoln and we can win this. We are Lincoln and we will win this.

Here endeth the lesson.
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We are imps and we will win. Forget those years where we seemed to have to apply each year for re-election and all those other dark days . We’re on our way up the football league….
 
CardiffImp said:
We are imps and we will win. Forget those years where we seemed to have to apply each year for re-election and all those other dark days . We’re on our way up the football league….
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I started watching the Imps in 1963 so missed our last appearance in the second tier by two years. You cannot imagine how I feel about this upcoming game.
 
Impalex said:
I started watching the Imps in 1963 so missed our last appearance in the second tier by two years. You cannot imagine how I feel about this upcoming game.
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I started going as a kid about the same time. More regularly from 1964. I wasn't steeped in City history and not really aware of our amazing career in Div 2 through the 50s and how rapid our decline had been. I still found going to matches exciting and didn't realise how relatively rubbish we were in those days as I hadn't known anything different. The re-election years did bring the realisation that as a club at that time we were bouncing along the bottom. But we were a football league club and all the clubs that were non-league were our inferiors.
Despite frequent disappointments there was still always hope we would get out of Div 4 the right way. Of course it took until 75-76 to witness a promotion and the latent potential of the club.
Since then as we know there have been more downs than ups. Until the last 5 years.. Having learned about the 50s teams later on there has always been the feeling that one day we could get back to the second tier and the city could support a Championship club, despite the massive changes in the finances of football. The strides made in the last few years suggest it is possible. If it doesn't happen tomorrow we are in a good position to go again.
 
Eweimps said:
I was behind that goal and remember it being more packed in than it was. Long miserable drive home though
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Yes it was, in my case and my fellow travellers cold and draughty too.

There was a paucity in programmes too, as they used same ones from the original match where gate was only expected to have been not more couple of thousand, rather than the nearly 20k that tipped up for the rearranged fixture.
 
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The Electric Banana said:
Yes it was, in my case and my fellow travellers cold and draughty too.

There was a paucity in programmes too, as they used same ones from the original match where gate was only expected to have been not more couple of thousand, rather than the nearly 20k that tipped up.
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Oh dear, did you lose a window EB?
 
Bucksimp said:
I started going as a kid about the same time. More regularly from 1964. I wasn't steeped in City history and not really aware of our amazing career in Div 2 through the 50s and how rapid our decline had been. I still found going to matches exciting and didn't realise how relatively rubbish we were in those days as I hadn't known anything different. The re-election years did bring the realisation that as a club at that time we were bouncing along the bottom. But we were a football league club and all the clubs that were non-league were our inferiors.
Despite frequent disappointments there was still always hope we would get out of Div 4 the right way. Of course it took until 75-76 to witness a promotion and the latent potential of the club.
Since then as we know there have been more downs than ups. Until the last 5 years.. Having learned about the 50s teams later on there has always been the feeling that one day we could get back to the second tier and the city could support a Championship club, despite the massive changes in the finances of football. The strides made in the last few years suggest it is possible. If it doesn't happen tomorrow we are in a good position to go again.
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Almost exactly my experience, too. Mind you, there were some fantastic moments dotted around; the 8-1 drubbing of Luton Town, beating Newcastle United and Sunderland at home in the League Cup, drawing at Derby County, winning our last game of the season 4-5 at Champions Stockport County and others. I wouldn't change a thing!
 
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