Lincoln City can ‘look forward’ to Tottenham after 27-game unbeaten run seals League One title

Lincoln City became the first EFL team to win a league title with their 2-0 win over Doncaster Rovers third-tier glory.

The Imps, who were promoted to the Championship for the first time in 65 years this month, have now ensured they will go up in style with Ben House’s double securing the win on Tuesday night.

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Michael Skubala’s side booked their spot in the second division with five games to spare following a 2-1 win at Reading two weeks ago.

It’s testament to Lincoln’s mentality that the club have now confirmed their status as League One champions as well.

“We just keep pushing,” Skubala told talkSPORT’s Hawsbee & Jacobs after the club sealed promotion.

“They’re an amazing group to work with every day. Their mentality is phenomenal, a great club and great staff, and we just keep working hard.”

Lincoln’s Championship rise is all the more remarkable considering the club were languishing in non-league as recently as 2017, the same year they faced Arsenal in the FA Cup quarter-finals.

“There’s so many people that you can talk about that have helped shape the club in the past and where it was,” Skubala added.

“Down to the people that probably put money in the club to keep it alive back in the National League, all the way back to Graham Taylor’s years. They were a very successful club.

“So this club has some unbelievable history. It’s set in a part of the country where there’s not many other clubs around. Mansfield and Nottingham Forest are an hour away. Grimsby, probably their local rivals, we feel like is quite far away. So the fan base is very committed as well, and it’s on its own.

“But there’s so many people that have invested into this club over the last ten years, whether it’s coaches and players that come and go. But the people, the fans, if you like, the supporters, who’ve had to put their hands in their pockets to keep it alive and now getting hopefully their just rewards of seeing the club in the Championship next year.

“I think it’s 65 years that haven’t been there, and some of them are so made up, it’s unbelievable.”

Lincoln spent six seasons at National League level before two promotions in three years earned a place in League One in 2019.

Club CEO Liam Scully told talkSPORT Sunday Edition: “Part of the success story is that we’ve been able to attract international and overseas investment.

“I’d like to think that we’ve acted responsibly and balanced with that.

“You look at some of the losses that are in the game. We’re never at the peak of those annual losses. We’ve invested in infrastructure on the back of the FA Cup run – we’ve built the training ground.

“So we’ve done things that we believe, like I say, without labouring the point that change the base of the club and try and be as smart as we can with our investment that ensures that we’re looking at the whole football club, maybe not just the first team and investing in a squad for one or two years.

“I think that’s probably been the trademark of what’s got us to where we are today.”

‘We just wanted to do it our way’

That point was proven at the midway point of the season, when Lincoln had the opportunity to splash the cash to aid their title bid.

“We had opportunities in January to really bring people, top players, into the club to support the journey, but we actually decided not to do it,” Skubala explained to talkSPORT.

“We decided that we thought we’d bring some really good top loanees in, in Ryan One and Alfie Lloyd, that we thought could add to a group in a different way.

“At that point, because we were in the play-offs and it was close, do we throw some extra resource at this to try and get us over the line?

“But everyone was aligned. We just wanted to do it our way.
We talk a lot about doing it our way.

“We talk about being us all the time and how Lincoln City want to do it. And that’s probably our success in what we’ve done is our true alignment from top to bottom, and doing it our way and not trying to copy.

“I think if you try to copy-paste in football, there’s usually someone with deeper and bigger pockets that can challenge you on that.”

Fans chant about Tottenham away day

Not many teams that Lincoln have played this season have had deeper and bigger pockets than Chelsea.

The two teams played out a 2-1 win for the Blues in the Carabao Cup, setting the tone for the level at which the Imps could compete.

And ironically, it could be Chelsea’s London rivals, Tottenham Hotspur, being welcomed to LNER Stadium at the start of next campaign.

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Reacting to Lincoln fans signing about playing relegation-threatened Spurs, CEO Scully added: Absolutely look. We’ll look forward to it.

“There’s going to be lots of new grounds, but look, we’re not there as tourists. We’re definitely there to be professional and do a job, and of course, you know I’m going to back us.

“We’re not going to be naive or blasé to that, but I go back to the intent. The intent is to continually raise the base of this football club, and we will have on and off seasons.

“There will be times we might not get it right, but now our ambition is to look up, and our intent is absolutely staying in the championship and thriving from there on a real good go.”

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Lincoln’s unbeaten run

The 2-0 win has extended the EFL’s current longest unbeaten run to 27 matches.

That has seen Lincoln draw level with Huddersfield Town’s 2010/11 team for the second-longest unbeaten run in a single League One season since the EFL’s 2004 rebrand.

The Imps can now equal Luton Town’s 2018/19 all-time record at home to Wycombe Wanderers this Saturday.

Then the history books can be permanently rewritten on Lincoln’s final day as a League One club away at Port Vale on May 2.

Yet on the step-up to the Championship, manager Skubala conceded: “It’s going to be a phenomenally tough season, but League One is tough as well.

Championship now the fifth-best league

“It’s a hard-brawling season, and when you’re trying to do well in the Cups, and you’re trying to get promoted in League One, there’s some big clubs in League One in Bolton, Huddersfield and Luton Town coming down. So there’s some tough challenges. But I think for me, the biggest – It’s a huge step up.

“It might only be one tier in English football, but in the global sense, it’s probably 20 steps, because the Championship now is the fifth best league in the world and the global players are in there.

“So we’ve got a lot of work to do in terms of building a strategy and how we think we can attack that league by being us.

“And we’re going to have to be us because, again, we have no chance of copying the Premier League teams coming down and trying to do how they do it.

“So we’re going to have to find, if you like, a methodology and a model in how we want to do it.

“And that’s already gone to work behind the scenes. I know the guys, Liam and Jez [George], will be working on that hard.

“But yeah, we’re going to have to try and fight the big clubs, if you like, in a way that we think we can be successful.”

Lincoln City’s last league loss

Lincoln are the only EFL club without a league defeat in 2026.

November was the last time the Imps failed to earn at least a point, following a 3-2 away loss to Saturday’s opponents, Wycombe.

That defeat was their fifth from their opening 17 League One matches, which sparked a remarkable run of history-making form.

Lincoln have since won 20 of their next 26 fixtures, drawing only six, while remaining undefeated to finish first in the title race.