There is no gentle way back into the Championship. Lincoln City do not get a warm welcome, a soft landing or a friendly reminder of how far they have come. They get Middlesbrough at the Riverside on Saturday, and that is exactly the kind of opening fixture that tells you very quickly whether promotion has been celebrated properly or merely admired from a distance.
It has been 65 years since Lincoln last played at this level, and that alone gives this season opener a little extra weight. But the bigger story is the one sitting in the dugout. Michael Skubala took Lincoln to 103 points and promotion before leaving for Bristol City, and now Tom Shaw and Chris Cohen have been handed the job of carrying the club’s Championship return forward as a joint head coach setup. That is not a normal arrangement, and it is not supposed to be. It is supposed to work because the people inside the club believe it can work.
A partnership built before the pressure arrived
Cohen has made the case plainly enough. He says he and Shaw have formed a close coaching relationship over the last few years, and that the club saw their partnership develop before deciding to trust them with the same job. He also pointed to the logic of the arrangement by comparing it with Liverpool’s Roy Evans and Gérard Houllier, describing that as two men put together by a football club and told to do the same job. The point is obvious: Lincoln have not stumbled into this. They have chosen it.
That matters, because joint setups usually invite scepticism for a reason. Shared responsibility can become shared confusion if the football gets messy. But Cohen’s own words suggest the club is banking on familiarity rather than compromise. He and Shaw, he says, see football the same way, life the same way, and have principles that are very, very similar. In other words, Lincoln are not asking two strangers to survive on the same touchline. They are asking two coaches who already think alike to carry a newly promoted club into a far harsher league.
The first proper answer comes at the Riverside
And here is the problem with romantic talk about togetherness: the Championship has no interest in sentimental stories. Middlesbrough spent more than £20m on summer signings, which is the sort of financial muscle that quickly turns a brave narrative into a severe examination. Lincoln’s achievement in getting back here after 65 years away deserves respect. Their 142-year history deserves perspective. But Saturday is about survival, adaptation and whether the new coaching structure can hold up when the football gets faster and the margins get thinner.
There was even a small reminder of the modern football machine on Tuesday lunchtime, when a lorry emblazoned with KGB parked alongside Lincoln’s training ground. It is the sort of detail that says something about the scale of the operation around them now. Championship football is not a nostalgic reward. It is a grind. It demands organisation, clarity and a thick skin.
So yes, Lincoln City have earned the right to be here. But the real question is harsher than that: can Tom Shaw and Chris Cohen make this unusual setup look like a strength rather than an experiment? Their return to the second tier begins at Middlesbrough, and that is a very good place to find out.
