Appleton clears first hurdle. Settle down at the back!

Not the first win, that was always going to come sooner or later although few would have predicted the duck would be broken against Sunderland. Their board decided a loss was bad enough but a loss against Lincoln City was too much to bear. This has happened before of course, Notts County having decided that losing to City was a sacking offence although they went on to lose a good few more and I suppose on reflection, as with Mansfield Town and the Mariners, nothing can be taken for granted and, locally, Lincoln City are now the big team up the road. How times change.

What I’m referring to in the headline is the continuation of fans enthusiasm and in particular fans resolve to stick with the Imps. Doubly so as the Sunderland fixture produced a record gate in the reconfigured stadium. There are specific circumstances demanded if this is to happen, a big draw by way of an opponent and those opponents taking all their ticket allocation. The fact that City not only won the game but did so in such convincing and entertaining fashion will ensure the turnstiles keep clicking for some time to come and if the manager can continue to produce such refreshing football who knows, the journey may not only continue but do so in such a way as to demand further accommodation be secured one way or another in order to cope with the clamour to see games.

Appleton is a totally different manager to the previous regime which keen eyed readers may notice I’m trying not to name. Students of the game will know the manager had something of a golden period with Oxford United and anyone at the Sunderland game will hope they saw something of what we might be treated to once things start to fall in to place.

I don’t think many of us, certainly not me, expect City to race on from the last home performance and start knocking seven bells out of all and sundry and sweep to an unlikely further promotion but I certainly have considerably more hope that the journey is not over yet having been at Sincil Bank last Saturday.

Further proof that division one is a step change from our briefly held sojourn in league two comes next in the not inconsiderable shape of Peterborough United, a club I have occasionally kidded myself are not a million miles away from our heroes. We will see if the Imps are now continuing where they left off before circumstances intervened when Huddersfield Town flexed their muscles. Was it leaves on the line or a derailment? We’ll know more tomorrow.