Chesterfield to take inspiration from Lincoln City's remarkable promotion to Championship

The Imps will be playing second-tier football for the first time in 65 years after securing automatic promotion from League One on Easter Monday with a dramatic last-gasp 2-1 victory at Reading. A point was all they needed and that was what they were getting when Reading equalised in added-time. But the visitors went straight down the other end and scored a winner in front of their jubilant fans.

With a 12 point lead at the top, Michael Skubala’s men are likely to go on and secure the title, an achievement which would have been unthinkable at the start of the season given their budget compared to some of the bigger clubs in the division.

Lincoln won the National League just nine years ago and followed that up by topping League Two two years later. This is their seventh season in League One so they have been building for a while and it has paid off as they can now look forward to possible games against the likes of Wolves and maybe even West Ham or Spurs.

The Spireites have ambitions of their own to get into League One and, at the very least, consolidate there, but manager Paul Cook has said he would like to get them ‘knocking on the door’ of the Championship like in his first spell in charge.

Interestingly, Chesterfield have been in touch with Lincoln recently to congratulate them and pick their brains on how they have gone about their work. With both clubs having dropped out of the Football League and then bounced back, there are similarities with their individual stories.

Speaking at a fans’ forum this week, chief executive, John Croot, said: “Lincoln City is a club which has developed enormously since they came out of the National League themselves. They have got stability off the pitch as well as on it and that is key.

"I know their CEO (Liam Scully) very well over many years and he has got plenty of innovative ideas for how we can do it. Their history is similar to ours in that they have had supporter involvement really heavily so as a benchmark it is something that we would like to work towards.”