Lincoln City
Also written as Lincoln.
The club
Lincoln City were founded in 1884 and have played at Sincil Bank in Lincoln since 1895, having moved there from John O'Gaunts. Capacity is 10,669, the smallest in the Championship in 2026/27. The club play in red and white striped shirts with black shorts and red and white socks, and are known as the Imps after the Lincoln Imp carved into the cathedral.
Recent seasons
Lincoln were National League champions in 2016/17 with 99 points, their second title at that level, and went up again as League Two champions in 2018/19 with 85 points. Their first four seasons back in League One were 16th (42 points, 2019/20), fifth (77 points, 2020/21), 17th (52 points, 2021/22) and 11th (62 points, 2022/23). They were seventh in 2023/24 with 74 points and 11th again in 2024/25 with 61.
The 2020/21 season under Michael Appleton was the near miss. Lincoln finished fifth with 77 points from 46 games, 22 wins, 11 draws and 13 defeats, 69 goals scored and 50 conceded, beat Sunderland in the play-off semi-final and lost the final to Blackpool on 30 May 2021.
Then came 2025/26, comfortably the best season in the club's modern history. Lincoln won League One with 103 points from 46 games, 31 wins, ten draws and five defeats, 89 goals scored and 41 conceded, a goal difference of plus 48. They finished 12 clear of Cardiff City. The campaign included a 29-match unbeaten run. It was their first League One title and their fourth championship of the third tier. They are in the Championship for 2026/27.
Honours and landmarks
Champions of the third tier four times: Third Division North in 1931/32, 1947/48 and 1951/52, and League One in 2025/26. League Two champions 2018/19. National League champions 2016/17, and previously Conference champions in the 1980s. EFL Trophy winners 2018.
The run that made the modern club's name came in 2016/17, when Lincoln, then a non-league side, reached the FA Cup quarter-finals, the first non-league club to reach the last eight since 1913/14.
Record league attendance at Sincil Bank is 23,146 against Grimsby Town on 5 March 1949; the record for a cup tie is 23,196 against Derby County on 15 November 1967. Grant Brown holds the appearance record with 469. Andy Graver is the leading scorer with 143 goals across two spells, 1950-55 and 1958-61. Record fee paid is £2.6m for Andrei Coubis in 2026; record fee received is £1.2m from Norwich City for Jovon Makama in 2025.
Notable scorelines
Record victory: 11-1 against Crewe Alexandra on 29 September 1951. No record defeat is published in any source I could find, and it is not established.
Head-to-head notes
Lincoln do not publish all-time head-to-head records on their own website, and no published all-time record could be established for any of their 2026/27 Championship opponents. This is a genuine gap rather than a lazy one: Lincoln have not been in the second tier in living memory and have almost no shared league history with most of this division.
The contacts that can be dated are all from the last few weeks. Lincoln lost 2-0 to Leyton Orient in a pre-season friendly in Spain on 17 July 2026, beat Mansfield Town 3-0 on 25 July and lost 5-1 at Grimsby Town on 28 July. They were drawn away to Derby County in the EFL Cup first round, and Derby also provided the club's record cup attendance in 1967. They sold Erik Ring to Kilmarnock on 4 July.
Right now (2026/27)
Chris Cohen and Tom Shaw were appointed joint head coaches in July 2026 after Michael Skubala left to take the Bristol City job; the exact date of the change is not established from the sources read. Skubala had taken Lincoln up as champions.
Transfer business has been light for a promoted club. In: left-back Callum Elder from Derby County on a free on 1 July; centre-back Andrei Coubis from Universitatea Cluj on 25 July for an undisclosed fee, reported as a club record £2.6m; and goalkeeper Joe Gauci on 28 July. George Wickens signed a new contract on 22 July. Out: winger Erik Ring to Kilmarnock on 4 July and midfielder JJ McKiernan to Bromley on 27 July, both for undisclosed fees.
Pre-season: 1-0 at Boston United on 11 July, 2-0 down to Leyton Orient on 17 July, 3-0 at home to Mansfield Town on 25 July, and 5-1 away to Grimsby Town on 28 July, comfortably the heaviest of the summer.
Lincoln play Derby County away at Pride Park in the EFL Cup first round on Saturday 8 August 2026. The Championship season opens between 14 and 17 August; Lincoln's first league fixture is away to Middlesbrough at the Riverside Stadium on Saturday 15 August 2026 at 3pm.
Sources
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lincoln_City_F.C. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020%E2%80%9321_Lincoln_City_F.C._season https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2026%E2%80%9327_Lincoln_City_F.C._season https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2025%E2%80%9326_EFL_League_One https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2026%E2%80%9327_EFL_Championship https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2026%E2%80%9327_EFL_Cup https://fchd.info/LINCOLNC.HTM https://www.weareimps.com/news/
Researched and written for not4quarters. Where a fact could not be established from the sources read, this page says so rather than guessing.