Lincoln Red Imps
The club
Lincoln Red Imps Football Club were formed in Gibraltar in 1976 as the Blue Batons, out of a police youth team and players released by Glacis United and St Jago's. They were renamed after Lincoln City, whose nickname the Imps comes from the legend of the Lincoln Imp, and took the "Red Imps" name after sponsorship from Reg Brealey, a former Sheffield United chairman and Lincoln resident. They play in red and are known simply as the Red Imps.
Domestically they share the Victoria Stadium, capacity 2,300, with every other club in the territory. European home matches are played at the Europa Point Stadium, where crowds are typically between 700 and 800.
Recent seasons
Lincoln are the dominant club in Gibraltar and have won six league titles in a row. They took the Gibraltar National League in 2020/21 and 2021/22, the Gibraltar Football League in 2022/23, 2023/24 and 2024/25, and won it again in 2025/26 with 23 wins, 3 draws and 1 defeat from 27 matches, 89 goals scored and 17 conceded, 72 points. That season they also won the Rock Cup and the Pepe Reyes Cup, a domestic treble.
They have won 30 league titles in all, including fourteen in a row between 2003 and 2016.
Honours and landmarks
Thirty Gibraltar league titles, twenty-one Rock Cups, thirteen Pepe Reyes Cups and eighteen Gibraltar League Senior Cups. Seven domestic trebles and four doubles. They hold the record for the longest chronological unbeaten league run in European men's football, 88 matches over 1,959 days from May 2009 to September 2014. In 2014 they were the first Gibraltarian club to play in UEFA competition, and in August 2021 the first to reach the group stage of a European competition.
Notable scorelines
On 12 July 2016 Lincoln beat the Scottish champions Celtic 1-0 at the Victoria Stadium in the Champions League second qualifying round, Lee Casciaro scoring in the 48th minute. It was Brendan Rodgers' first competitive match as Celtic manager; Celtic won the return 3-0. The result remains the best-known in Gibraltarian football. On 23 October 2025 Lincoln beat Lech Poznań 2-1 for their first ever win in a European group or league phase, and on 11 December 2025 they beat Sigma Olomouc 2-1, the first meeting between clubs from Gibraltar and the Czech Republic. Their heaviest recent European defeat is 0-5 away to Zrinjski Mostar on 2 October 2025.
European record
Lincoln entered UEFA competition for the first time in the 2014/15 Champions League first qualifying round, the first match played by a Gibraltarian club in Europe, and drew after taking the lead from a penalty. In 2015/16 they became the first Gibraltarian club to reach the second qualifying round of the Champions League, drawing 0-0 at home with FC Santa Coloma and winning the return 2-1 in Andorra with goals from Anthony Bardon and Lee Casciaro, before losing 3-0 on aggregate to Midtjylland. The Celtic win followed in 2016.
In August 2021 they became the first Gibraltarian club to reach a European group stage, beating the Latvian champions Riga FC in the Conference League play-off, and played in the 2021/22 group phase. In 2024/25 they reached the Conference League play-off round.
The 2025/26 season was their best. Eliminated from the Champions League at the second qualifying round and from the Europa League at the play-off round, they reached the Conference League league phase for a second time and won two matches there: 2-1 at home to Lech Poznań on 23 October 2025 and 2-1 at home to Sigma Olomouc on 11 December. They also drew 1-1 with Rijeka at home on 6 November, and lost 5-0 at Zrinjski Mostar, 3-1 at Hamrun Spartans and 4-1 at Legia Warsaw. Two wins, one draw and three defeats, seven goals scored and fifteen conceded, and 26th of 36 in the table.
Quotes
No directly quoted material was confirmed from the sources read here. Searches for post-match comment from the Lincoln manager on the Omonia first leg returned previews and match data only.
Right now (2026/27)
Juanjo Bezares was manager through 2025/26, for the domestic treble and the Conference League league phase. Juanma Pavón is listed as head coach for this season. No club announcement of the change was found in the sources read here, so the date on which it happened is not established.
As Gibraltar champions Lincoln entered the Champions League at the first qualifying round. They beat Inter Club d'Escaldes of Andorra 3-1 at the Europa Point Stadium on 7 July 2026 in front of 721, Nano scoring a penalty on sixteen minutes, Manu Toledano on 26 and Facu Álvarez on 67, with a Christian Rutjens own goal for the visitors on the stroke of half-time. The return at the Estadi Nacional in Andorra la Vella on 14 July finished 1-1, Álex Mula scoring on 62 minutes and Dacu equalising on 80, so Lincoln went through 4-2.
The second qualifying round ended the Champions League run. Mjällby AIF won 3-0 at Strandvallen on 21 July, Áki Samuelsen scoring twice and Jacob Bergström once inside the first 32 minutes, and the return at the Europa Point Stadium on 28 July finished 0-0. Lincoln dropped into the Europa League Champions Path third qualifying round.
There they face Omonia of Cyprus and the tie is finely balanced. Lincoln drew the first leg 1-1 at the Europa Point Stadium on 6 August 2026 in front of 716, Christian Rutjens scoring on 71 minutes and Panagiotis Andreou equalising for Omonia in the third minute of stoppage time. The second leg is at the GSP Stadium in Nicosia on 13 August 2026, refereed by Sebastian Gishamer of Austria. The winner plays Sint-Truiden in the Europa League play-off round on 20 and 27 August; the loser drops into the Conference League play-off round.
Sources
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lincoln_Red_Imps_F.C. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2025%E2%80%9326_Lincoln_Red_Imps_F.C._season https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2026%E2%80%9327_UEFA_Champions_League_qualifying https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2026%E2%80%9327_UEFA_Europa_League_qualifying https://www.uefa.com/uefachampionsleague/match/2048624/ https://www.uefa.com/uefachampionsleague/match/2048638/ https://www.uefa.com/uefachampionsleague/match/2048713 https://www.uefa.com/uefachampionsleague/match/2048727 https://www.uefa.com/uefaeuropaleague/match/2049120 https://www.uefa.com/uefaeuropaleague/match/2049132 https://www.sportsmole.co.uk/football/lincoln-red-imps/preview/lincoln-vs-omonia-prediction-team-news-lineups_602411.html https://www.theguardian.com/football/2016/jul/12/lincoln-red-imps-gibraltar-celtic
Researched and written for not4quarters. Where a fact could not be established from the sources read, this page says so rather than guessing.