Ever closer union.

Now that the excitement is over for another season it makes quite a pleasant change to have, not an inquest but an appraisal of where we now are as fans and club. Lincoln City have made the first move praising the fans both for their support over the season and particularly in the final game, away at Hyde. Hyde directors and VIP’s we are told were very complementary about the Imps support both in terms of numbers and general good nature. It does help when your team produce the sort of performance that is going to delight any set of supporters but as they say, we’ll take that.


Furthermore the board of directors have broken with recent tradition and negotiated a three year contract with manager Gary Simpson. Rather surprisingly the fact that Simpson has even been confirmed let alone granted a long contract has raised eyebrows amongst some fans. David Holdsworth’s efforts produced such a poor points return, eclipsed by his successor, that one would have supposed the new man would have been welcomed with open arms as I’m sure he is by most of us worn down by watching such unsuccessful campaigns lately. A three year deal though? Time will tell as ever.

Simpson did well at Macclesfield before falling victim to the curse of the lower league manager, player sales and budget cuts. Well Bob Dorrian has some news for us. The board are looking at supplying a larger fund this time, provided gates increase. In this regard Simpson has shown he can do this in the short time available to him culminating in that marvellous show on Saturday, not that away support provides a penny for the away team but it has shown interest is there.

As ever, how the season pans out and how the finances hold out depends on the sort of start the team can get off to but the next big financial hurdle, season ticket sales, is taking place against a background of considerably more optimism. We’ll take that too.