Great Expectations.

 

I was listening to BBC Radio Lincolnshire after the match on Tuesday. I was tuned in anyway as I turned the sound off on ifollow and listened to their commentary instead of the one provided. It sounds like that was a good idea judging by some of your comments.

Anyway I was dreaming away, a bit ecstatic if I’m honest and not really paying all that much attention when up came what I presume to be BBC Humberside and the interviewer was absolutely slaughtering the Hull manager at the way they played, the result, the players performances. It was quite an eyeopener considering they had just held the league leaders, the team that had knocked them out of the FA Trophy the week before.

We then had played an interview with Ipswich Town’s assistant manager I think it was. Not quite so overt but ditto really. You were rubbish tonight was the theme, why aren’t you top of the league?

Why aren’t they top of the league? Or Sunderland or Portsmouth or Peterborough for that matter. It’s not as simple as that is the honest answer as City found out when relegated. We were showing no sign of climbing out of the mire when we were there, look at Stockport, Wrexham, York. Big or relatively big clubs all of them, certainly in the context of non league.

Compare and contrast with Lincoln City. No one was questioning Michael Appleton on Tuesday as to why we’d “only” drawn with Hull. Personally I was delighted, I dare say you were too. In the wider context delight probably isn’t the word. Disbelief possibly sums it up better.

For quite some time I subscribed to the big club, why aren’t we winning games mindset when we were down there. It amuses me no end to think what the likes of Hull, Sunderland and Ipswich think when they see little old Lincoln looking down at them. I’d love to be a fly on the wall in the Ipswich boardroom or any of them for that matter.

And yet it isn’t rocket science is it? I’ll qualify this by saying it does help when the board of directors can sanction an £800000 cash injection but the secret, apart from that is complete harmony between chairman, board, investors, management and fans. Supporters who understand the term and support the club, not just the team, through thick and thin. A team fashioned with due regard for the economics of the situation and in a sustainable way. Oh yes, and the best manager in the league by a country mile. One that’s tried and failed at various clubs and for various reasons but now, I sincerely hope, has realised that he’s come home and is in this enterprise for the long haul.

That’s about all really except to say, well, isn’t life grand?