Lincoln look back at another season of unfulfilled potential and disappointment as one of the biggest clubs in the division was nowhere near the play-off places again. Now in their fifth season in the non-league, the Imps started the season with plenty of promise and hopes after a fruitful transfer campaign and some good showings at the back end of the previous season. The fact that key personnel, namely Ben Tomlinson, Alan Power and Sean Newton, were retained brought lots of optimism among the fans while some decent players like Jordan Burrow and Marcus Marshall arrived. Hamza Bencherif also returned to the club to provide presence and variety in midfield. The start of the season was decent enough and they won three of the first four games, including an excellent 2:1 win at early pace-setters, Barnet. But late August and September proved unkind for Gary Simpson and his men as they lost six of their next seven games and promptly dropped to mid-table. They were leaking too many goals and turning some woeful showings, most notably meek couple of losses on the road to Welling and Aldershot. The results remained mixed in the autumn as Lincoln clearly lacked both consistency and quality to compete with the best in the league. Tomlinson was not coming up with the goals as he used to in the previous season while Nat Brown was struggling at the back. Pressure started to turn on Simpson after another shallow loss at Nuneaton and he was eventually sacked at the start of November after the team contrived to blow away a three-goal lead away at Forest Green. Chris Moyses was promoted as a replacement, even if he had no real experience as a manager and very little qualification for the job. He actually had good impact on the side going towards the festive schedule as a run of home wins bolstered morale. Indeed, the Imps played their best football of the season over the turn of the year as they upstaged bitter rivals Grimsby for a 3:1 win and then swatted Barnet aside for a superb 4:1 home victory. Indeed, a run of six wins in seven gave fresh hopes of a play-off push. But Lincoln’s season quickly faded as a free catastrophic losses on the road, most notable a capitulation away at Chester, ensured that the rest of the season fritted away in mid-table mediocrity. The team put in the occasional good performance for the rest of the season but morale was pretty low and the players were not really trying. They finished the season with just the two wins from the last 14 games in the league and little to be proud of ahead of another season of rebuilding, with the hopes of a successful play-off push next year rather slender.
