Another one bites the dust.

So farewell then David Holdsworth. I’ve no scientific basis for this but I would guess that your win ratio is among the worst of any Lincoln City manager. Whether this is entirely or indeed even slightly your fault we shall never know.


Holdsworth certainly talked a good game and if the instruction for last season was slash the wage bill and keep City in the division then he did all that was asked of him. Another manager goes falling on his sword with, for me, echoes of someone else who tried and failed, Chris Sutton. Sutton could see which way the wind was blowing and chose to depart rather than face the day to day struggle for survival that is the hot seat at Sincil Bank. At least City were still in the Football League when Sutton took his leave. The Imps are virtually where they were when Holdsworth took over. He may argue that is in itself an achievement given the resources at his disposal but ultimately (cliché alert) football is a results business and Holdsworths were poor. Desperately poor.

Until recently all the vibes coming out of the club were that the manager would be awarded a new contract and the club were just sorry that, given the paucity of resources, it would be a short one. Holdsworth, master of publicity, pronounced himself satisfied with that. The trouble with all this is that the fans were not satisfied, not in the slightest.

The club, meanwhile, sailed on either oblivious to the fans views or disregarding of them. He who pays the piper calls the tune. Indeed he does but football is unlike any other business arrangement and the crowd have to be listened to eventually even if things have to turn ugly for their view to prevail. Had we reached that point? Had Holdsworth tired of the treadmill?

The problem with City’s situation is that the (another cliché alert) view from the terraces, from where I’m sitting at any rate is that the club have settled for their lowly status and instead of pronouncing themselves dissatisfied at the lack of progress the board gave the impression that all was well and what we have been witnessing IS progress. What the board of directors seem to be oblivious to is that there are plenty of other things to do in Lincoln of a Saturday afternoon but they have only to look out from their padded seats to gaze upon the empty spaces opposite them to see evidence of what the fans think. They’re voting with their feet. At one time there would have been a demonstration in front of the director’s box, now we can’t even get a quorum to do that.

So what do we have to offer the next incumbent? An impoverished club, detached from their supporters, some decent players and a lot of dead wood. Would you be interested? Nevertheless, I wish the board well in their quest for a replacement and of course such is the state of the game even at our humble level there will be takers. Darren Huckerby tweeted that he was considering throwing his hat in the ring but hoped that his enquiry would at least be acknowledged this time. Come on City, you can hardly fail to do better than that surely?