When the going gets tough.

 

Many moons ago my late father-in-law was on the board at Lincoln City, a thankless task at the time. City had a new manager, a young man plucked out of the team in his first managerial role. It was not going well but Dad saw some potential in the earnest young man who lived and died football and he had an ally on the board who thought the same. Together they persuaded the other board members to give the manager a bit longer to turn things round. You may have guessed that wet behind the ears coach was Graham Taylor. The rest is history. I was fortunate to meet Taylor, again a good few years ago and he told me that my father-in-law had effectively been responsible for saving his job and, as we know, it didn’t exactly do City any harm either.

So I’m always sceptical when people start calling for a managers head particularly when the reasons for the slump are reasonably obvious, finances, or at least an unwillingness to be held to ransom, loss of form in players, injuries and disappointment in the transfer market. When a club suffers all of those setbacks it’s difficult to see what good changing the man in charge would do, apart from what is known in some circles as a dead cat bounce.

Personally, although I did allow myself the possibility that the Imps could find themselves back in league two, I never believed that ditching Michael Appleton was the right thing to do, as my old boss used to say, in any way shape or form.

Anyway, not to put the cart before the horse, on Saturday and again last night, two of the unlikeliest fixtures to arrest the slide were faced and City emerged victorious. It wasn’t down to luck either.

We can’t yet say that we are out of the woods but things certainly look a whole lot rosier when you consider also, that a further quality addition to the squad is expected and finally the injury woes might be easing together with a return to form of some team members I had been wondering about.

It’s all particularly pleasing personally, Oxford is a team I’ve seen many times, home and away, usually with disappointing consequences and Sunderland, well Sunderland, you can forget your Ipswich’s and Charlton’s, Wigan’s and Sheffield Wednesday’s, Sunderland are right up there as the gold standard as far as away wins go. They must be highly delighted to fail to go top of the league courtesy of the leagues Cinderella side.

Hopefully it doesn’t end there, City now embark on a mixed programme for the next few games but the way things are going I wouldn’t put anything past them.