Right. Lincoln City. Conference in 2016. Championship in 2026. 24 league games unbeaten. One win away from the second tier for the first time since 1961. NINETEEN SIXTY ONE. That's before the internet. Before colour TV. Before your nan was born, probably. This is cinema. ⚽🔥

Michael Skubala is out here refusing to even SAY the word "promotion" like it's Voldemort or something. "It feels a bit like we're on match point," he said, and honestly that's the most controlled understatement since someone described the Titanic as "a bit of a boating incident." So let me do what Lincoln fans can't bring themselves to do and rank the seven stages every small club fanbase goes through during a promotion run that nobody saw coming.

Stage 1: "LOL, Steady On"

This is October energy. Your team wins five on the bounce and your mate in the group chat says "we're going up" and everyone sends the clown emoji. You've been hurt before. You remember that time you were top in November and finished 14th. You refuse to check the table. You check the table seven times a day. 💀

Stage 2: "Wait, Are We Actually... Good?"

The unbeaten run hits double digits. Local paper runs a feature. You start watching extended highlights instead of just goals. You google the manager's Wikipedia page and read it like it's a novel. You tell people at work about the 1-0 win over Wimbledon and they stare at you like you've started speaking Elvish.

Stage 3: The Superstition Phase

This is where Lincoln are RIGHT NOW. Nobody dares say it. The manager compares it to actors not saying "Macbeth." Fans are wearing the same unwashed shirt to every game. Your dad insists the team only wins when he listens on the radio instead of watching. Someone in the supporters' forum gets genuinely angry at a bloke for posting a photoshopped Championship table. The vibes are immaculate but also deeply unhinged. 😭

Stage 4: "I've Done the Maths"

Every permutation gets calculated. A draw between Bolton and Stockport would do it. A win at Reading seals it. Someone creates a spreadsheet. Someone else creates a BETTER spreadsheet. Arguments break out about goal difference scenarios that have a 0.3% chance of happening. You become a qualified statistician against your will.

Stage 5: The "Tottenham at Sincil Bank" Fantasy

This is when reality hits. You start looking at next season's potential fixtures and your brain short circuits. Wolves. At your ground. The one with the slightly dodgy burger van. The away end that holds about twelve people. You picture Son Heung-min (or whoever Spurs have left at this point, given their current trajectory 💀) walking out at YOUR stadium and you have to sit down for a minute.

Stage 6: The Emotional Collapse

Someone posts a photo of Sincil Bank from 2011 when it was half empty in the Conference. Then a photo of the full house last Friday. You're crying at 11am on a Tuesday. A grown adult. Over Lincoln City. No caption needed. 😭😭😭

Stage 7: "WE'VE DONE IT" (Pending)

POV: You're a Lincoln fan at Reading on Monday and the final whistle goes. Strangers are hugging. Someone's lost a shoe. The manager who wouldn't even say the word "promotion" is getting thrown in the air. Sixty five years of waiting, erased. Your grandad who last saw Lincoln in the second tier is watching from somewhere, fuming that you're filming it vertically.

Michael Skubala took a team that was in the Conference a decade ago and turned them into genuine Championship material through sheer stubbornness, tactical intelligence, and an unbeaten run that most Premier League managers would sacrifice a toe for. 🔥

The best part? While big clubs are sacking managers every six weeks and spending hundreds of millions to finish 14th, Lincoln are out here proving that football's best stories still come from the bottom of the pyramid.

This sport, man. This is why we're all still here. 🐐