History Of Lincoln City Football Club

Though often forgotten, the City of Lincoln was one of the pioneers of English football with the game being played in the city as early as the 1860's.

Lincoln FC, who later became known as Lindum FC, regularly hosted matches during that time against such respected teams as Sheffield FC. Like Sheffield FC, Lincoln FC had no direct association with any of the present day football teams that are now based in the city. Football in the mid-Nineteenth Century was regarded as a sport mainly for the rich, ironically this is a situation which we find ourselves heading for today. During the 1870's this changed as the local factories altered their working hours, allowing Saturday afternoon as a holiday. This increase in workers' leisure time led to the founding of Lincoln Recreation Football Club in 1872, situated just down the road from the present day Sincil Bank.

Lincoln Recreation FC played their matches on the Cowpaddle so called because cows grazed on the fields but this did not stop Lincoln Recreation becoming a reasonable team and rivalling the firmly established Lindum FC.

1881 saw the formation of the Lincolnshire Football Association but it was in the south of the county that the stronger teams emerged. A proposal was put forward suggesting that Lincoln should field a combined team to take on the stronger sides and help place Lincolnshire's largest and only City on the footballing map. By now Lincoln Recreation FC had changed their name to Lincoln Rovers, though Lindum FC were still the better side. The idea of a combined team was given a trial period and a better class of opposition were attracted to the City, which in turn increased the popularity of football in Lincoln. However both Lincoln teams were reluctant to merge altogether so continued with their separate identities.

Three years later, in the summer of 1884, a series of public meetings directly led to the formation of today's Lincoln City FC. As Lincoln Recreation/Rovers were disbanding, the players and committee members alike offered their support and skills to the new Lincoln City FC. Several players became Lincoln City players and the shirts of Lincoln Recreation/Rovers, red and white, were adopted by City. This new team abandoned the Cowpaddle and found a new pitch at John O'Gaunts, unfortunately it was owned by a stables and was little improvement from the cows roaming wild.

Lincoln City 9 Sleaford 1 was the result of City's first ever match, played on the 4th October 1884. During that season the new club progressed to the third round of the FA Cup, a feat which the present day club mostly finds impossible to achieve. The average crowd was around 500 spectators though depending on the match this could double.

Meanwhile Lindum FC, still the better team in Lincoln, were becoming increasingly worried by the new club and in 1885 their representatives approached Lincoln City with a merger plan under the name of Lindum FC.

The committee members of Lincoln City felt that this was a backward step and that the idea would effectively be a take-over by Lindum, so rejected the proposal. Lindum were miffed at this so set about effectively killing the new club by hiring a field opposite John O'Gaunts but nearer to the Sincil Drain. Though this pitch was slightly northwards from today's Sincil Bank it was still the origin of the present ground.

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