Lincoln City: How the Red Arrows helped the Imps to Championship promotion

The Red Arrows are world renowned as daredevils of the sky, an elite Royal Air Force Aerobatic Team based in Lincolnshire that specialises in the inconceivable.

And so, when Lincoln City dared to soar to Championship promotion, reaching footballing heights not seen at the club for 65 years, it somehow makes sense that their high-flying neighbours had a part to play.

"The club is brave to think differently, look differently," Imps head coach Michael Skubala told BBC Sport.

The club with one of the smallest budgets in League One have looked everywhere - the sky included - in search of an edge to return them to the second tier for the first time since 1961.

In Skubala, a former England futsal head coach who studied psychology and sport science and has authored a number of books on coaching, they have a boss only too willing to try "outthink and outwork" their rivals.

This season, more than a third of League One sides have played in the Premier League, with seven - Cardiff, Luton, Huddersfield, Bolton, Reading, Blackpool and Wigan - doing so in the past 15 years.

"With our resources, we have to get things right," Skubala said.

"But that doesn't mean you can't innovate, that doesn't mean you can't think about things differently, but it's not an uncalculated risk. It's just thinking differently that helps the boat go faster.

"The Red Arrows are right on our doorstep. We go down there and we learn from them about how they do things.

"They are flying at hundreds of miles an hour with millimetres between their wings, and we're trying to learn how their pilots are getting prepared to do all that.

"It's a cauldron, if you like, of keeping improving and finding ways to be different, but not for difference's sake, that's the important thing.

"It's to be different to find success in football, which is the most important thing we are trying to do."

This from a 43-year-old who proudly - and rightfully - claims one of the more "eclectic" coaching backgrounds that spans the full football spectrum.

Skubala played for and later coached England's national futsal side, worked as a non-league assistant manager, as well as a college PE teacher and director of football at Loughborough University.

He committed years to youth development at the Football Association, Nottingham Forest and Coventry City, and it was only three years ago that he took charge of his first senior football match - stepping up from under-21 coach at Leeds United to take on caretaker Premier League duties when they faced Manchester United at Old Trafford in front of more than 73,000 spectators.

"My journey is so different because I've tried to learn everything along the way," he said.

"It's loads of work, loads of graft and driving minibuses back in the day.

"People probably know that story more from Leeds onwards, but there's probably 15 or 20 years before Leeds that has gone into the journey.

"In some ways you could probably see elements of futsal in the team's identity if you were to understand the game, because there's definitely some things that I've stolen, if you like, from that game and implemented into the 11 v 11 game."

Fusing futsal with how Lincoln play – a high-energy, technically adept and tactically alert approach – is only one of the many things that sets Imps apart and why seeking advice from a squadron of elite pilots is nothing out of the ordinary for a club that was an early adopter of the use of artificial intelligence when it comes to set pieces., external

But with a backstory of being a club that was saved by fans when they brought the Imps out of administration in 2002, and its climb from the National League to League One with two promotions in three years - which was punctuated by a record run to the FA Cup quarter-finals as a non-league side in 2017 - what it has taken to put Lincoln in a position to get promoted to the Championship is a study in "quiet, steady and thoughtful" progress.

It is this rise that has drawn backers from abroad, starting with South African Clive Nates in 2016.

High-profile American interest followed, with former United States international Landon Donovan coming in as adviser in 2021 alongside Arizona-based businessman Harvey Jabara who, in turn, helped bring former co-owner of Major League Baseball team the San Diego Padres, Ron Fowler, on board.

By the time Lincoln were on the brink of promotion this season, Fowler had upped his stakes to become chairman and majority shareholder - with a 35% stake in the club's parent company.

Fowler said there was a "David versus Goliath" appeal to Lincoln that drew the 81-year-old to a third-tier side run on a modest budget, when years earlier he was part of an American sporting franchise that was valued at $1.95bn (around £1.43bn) in 2025.

How Lincoln have been bankrolled has constantly changed - and seemingly now been supercharged - but there is no hint that the Imps will change their approach to being fiscally frugal and creatively adventurous in pursuit of success.

Skubala needs only mention Brentford - a club that curated a model for recruitment based on data that catapulted them from the lower leagues to become a Premier League mainstay - to highlight the importance of committing to an identity.

"This is a very well-run club. It knows what it is, it's always trying to find ways to punch above its weight and it's going to have to do that next season," he said.

"But look at other clubs like Brentford and what they've done, and you look at them as aspirations.

"We always talk about those type of clubs, that's probably more aligned to us than a Man United or one of the bigger clubs, so we have to look at those clubs as how we want to be.

"I'm sure there are ways and evidence in there that we can learn from.

"But I always believe when you have good people with a good plan that are hard-working, you can be successful.

"And that's what it is at Lincoln, and we're going to make sure we keep that, and keep driving that forward, and let's see what can happen."

With Jack Moylan scoring the stoppage-time winner against Reading in the game that sealed promotion to the Championship, Skubala could not help but describe it as a "fairytale" and typically-Lincoln way of getting over the line.

Moylan, who was plucked Shelbourne in the Republic of Ireland's top-flight in January 2024, is Lincoln's joint top scorer this term - alongside 28-year-old former Portsmouth winger Reeco Hackett - despite having spent three months out after undergoing ankle surgery in August.

"When he scores that goal he epitomises not just Jack and his journey, he epitomises the journey of the club," Skubala said.

"We want to develop players and prove that we can have a model that supports young players by also putting older players around them.

"And for me, the biggest thing is never giving up. We always talk about never losing football matches, we just run out of time trying."

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