City unable to set up a celebration last game.

The hope was of course, after a really good couple of results and some positive off the field news to finish off the season already qualified for the payoffs in front of a full house at Sincil Bank. Well, we have that bit of the scenario, the final game was sold out days ago, as you’d expect but City will go to the wire and instead of a carefree festival in the sun (not that the weathers been behaving so far this week) the Imps will battle it out with Yeovil needing a point to go into the end of season lottery. We shouldn’t be surprised of course, this being Lincoln City, we never do things the easy way.

We should think long and hard about the season though. Would we have been happy with the situation at the start of the campaign? Yes of course we would. Personally I’d have been satisfied with a mid table finish. When you consider the season Grimsby Town have endured and even worse Chesterfield who are a club we were talking up as a role model for us a short time ago with their state of the art facilities, we're a world away from the position they find themselves in. Will Chesterfield be able to bounce back at the first time of asking? Apart from that lovely stadium their situation looks ominously like our own when we went down to me.

Talking of state of the art I wonder what training facilities Accrington Stanley have? Well the answer is I don’t know but I looked up what they are planning, here’s what the club are saying:

"Accrington Stanley have submitted plans to Ribble Valley Council for a training ground facility at Cockwood."

Cockwood, behind Read Garden Centre, is already owned by Stanley owner Andy Holt and plans have been drawn up which feature two football pitches.
“We have spent years looking all over Hyndburn for a suitable area and have been unsuccessful,” said Mr Holt.
“It’s essential that, if we are to take Accrington Stanley forward, the club has a training ground. We feel it is something that is holding us back at the moment although we keep defying the odds on the pitch.
“It is the very early stages as the first stage is to have plans drawn up. We have submitted the application and will see where it takes us.”

Quite how all that will be achieved on gates of under two thousand I really don’t know although it does help if you own the land already. We had a chat with their owner when City beat Stanley at Sincil Bank earlier in the season although he was mainly concerned, seething was the expression, at the penalty and sending off they had suffered. He must have awfully deep pockets if he’s funding that lot but it goes to show it’s not just the Cowleys who see the future of smaller clubs in off the field investment not necessarily pouring money into the first team.