Sure footed City have their eyes on the prize.

The Americans say us Brits fall at every hurdle bar the last. Danny Cowley engineers his teams to be strongest in the second half of games and finding their best form at the end of the season. Once again, that’s proving to be the case. As for a hurdle race, looking back at the season so far, the Imps have cleared most of them.

The days are lengthening now and, whilst one hesitates to tempt providence, City are more and more looking the part as they press on to the end of the season. Those hiccups when City were drawing rather than winning and uncharacteristically letting things slip at the end of games now look just that, hiccups. That point at Mansfield was far more important in denying the Stags two points than City failing to gain them. The home form is good again. Bury had another slip yesterday, it would be churlish not to thank our neighbours for that, they will be glad they’ve been able to assist us of course. Stags, softened up by City last Monday lost further ground and City now have a decent cushion at the top.

Just looking around us I can’t help contrasting Lincoln with Notts County, their hapless chairman forced to put the club up for sale having spent a fortune trying to turn last seasons near miss into promotion, making the wrong choices of manager and personally embarrassing himself and look at them now. Was that money theirs to spend, like City or was it a punt on glory, like so many others before with foundations built on sand? Either way, it gives me no pleasure in seeing their plight. I can’t see them surviving in the league, mores the pity in my view.

Contrasting City with Magpies, I’m sure they see themselves as a much bigger club than us but our club quietly gets on with the business of progressing up the leagues. Our chairman stays out of the limelight, contenting himself with missives of encouragement, praise for the players and supporters. The club is run on businesslike ethics with experts in place to advise and progress, specialists like Liam Scully and of course our managers, the Cowleys. How often has Lincoln City’s manager been on football focus? Rarely. Did they sound like they were ready to jump any time soon? I got the impression from them that this was only the start of the journey.

It’s a beautiful morning. Have a nice day.