The early promotion of cathedral city team Lincoln to the Championship has rightly attracted attention and praise. For example, the latest edition of Four Four Two has a feature on the club which is well worth reading.
Lincoln is a classic ‘stand alone’ club. It is clearly the pre-eminent club in
Lincolnshire (Grimsby play in Cleethorpes and former EFL club Boston play in
the National League, as do Scunthorpe).
Lincolnshire is probably the leading arable farming county
in England with many large scale and prosperous enterprises – I gave a talk to
some of the leading producers many years ago, before Sir James Dyson got
involved with his innovative agricultural enterprises.
For the first time in 65 years, Lincoln City will play in
the second tier of English football next season — a success achieved despite
starting their 2025-26 campaign with the seventh-lowest budget among the 24
clubs in League One.
American investment
Lincoln are one of many English clubs to have received
American investment, with Ron Fowler, a former co-owner of Major League
Baseball’s San Diego Padres, now having the largest stake in the club. His
compatriot Harvey Jabara is also a key investor, and the USMNT’s joint record
goal scorer Landon Donovan is also on board as an investor and strategic
advisor.
South African former hedge fund manager Clive Nates has been
involved since 2016, when the club were playing non-League football in the
fifth tier of the English game, and he is the third largest shareholder.
Donovan describes Lincoln, located in the east Midlands of
England, a three-hour drive north from London, as a “really sweet, charming
town”.
Punching above their weight
They have the highest number of points, the most goals
scored, and the fewest conceded in League One this season, and have done it all
on a budget of around £5million ($6.6m). Jez George, the sporting director, told The
Athletic that the top budgets in the third tier are over £14million to
£15m. He says getting into the play-off positions (the clubs finishing between
third and sixth) should require spending £9m to £10m.
The squad’s highest-paid player is on £3,500 a week in a
division where George says some are on “north of £10,000 per week” and where
Lincoln see “the monster clubs” — Wrexham and Birmingham City were both
promoted to the Championship following major spending last season — getting
further away “in terms of sheer finance”.
The gap between Lincoln’s highest and lowest paid players is
“very small”, George says, making for a strong collective. There is no
individual star in the team. Despite being League One’s top scorers
collectively, no Lincoln player is into double figures for league goals this
season — “Just a bunch of people who have contributed throughout,” Donovan
says. “That was the story in the best teams I played in, too.”
Using data analysis
A data-led approach to recruitment — backed up by video
analysis and character assessments — has identified calculated risks in the
market. George says Lincoln buy data
from analysis company Impect, assessing talent across eight to 10 European
leagues, while more often using eyes and ears for the domestic market.
Lincoln spent £10,000 to access data from Insight Sport, a
soccer technology business that has since been bought and taken in-house by the
Friedkin Group, who own Premier League Everton and Roma of Italy’s Serie A top
flight. George describes it as an AI-based tool that analyses millions of
previously taken set pieces, which helps to devise fresh patterns and identify
flaws in their opponents’ defensive setups, while goalkeeping coach David
Preece also works on routines.
A revamped £1.3million training complex has also helped — a
dividend from Lincoln’s memorable FA Cup run as a National League side in the
2016-17 season, when they beat Ipswich Town, Brighton (Championship sides at
the time), and Burnley (who were in the Premier League) en route to a
quarter-final against eventual winners Arsenal.
Promotion this time, lifting Lincoln into the Championship,
brings fresh challenges. Even as a modestly run club in League One, Lincoln
still lost around £3million in the 2023-24 season. Many across their division
lost far more.
Once again, Lincoln will need to act smarter than their
rivals, many of whom operate on far greater revenues, when the new season
starts in August. “It’s not about going up,” Donovan says. “It is about staying
up.”
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