By Nathan Jackson
December 16 2007

Just under 2 weeks ago the club released a plan called "Jackson's 5 Steps To Promotion" and I'll admit being sceptical, but maybe it's not as unrealistic as it first sounded. City's recent good run has seen us double our points tally in the space of 3 weeks and now a 13 point gap to the Playoffs looks like a target that we can now realistically push for, afterall stranger things have happened.

Impossible is a word that humans use too much. The species has a habit of thinking something is true or false and therefore thinking it was impossible for that to be countered. For example, 700 years ago people though the world was flat and if you kept on sailing then you'd fall off. 60 years ago people thought going to the moon would be impossible (although conspiracy theorists still maintain that) and 3 months ago Imps fans thought it would be impossible to escape relegation to the Blue Square Premier.

John Schofield's time in charge undid all the hard work that Keith Alexander had put into the club in his 4 years here, and the fact that Schofield thought that the club's highest finish since returning to this division would console fans after the side threw again automatic promotion again, was quite simply a joke.

This club became such a negative place under Schofield. You could tell it in the fans and the players. It got to the point where everyone was turning up expecting the Imps to lose. I personally lost all enthusiasm for going to games and some of my rants in the recent past have been down to own personal frustrations that the players just didn't seem to care, and that Schofield seemed completely oblivious to it and continued with his constant outpouring of complete and utter crap after the match.

For all those that said Keith Alexander had a very limited array of post match reactions would have been even more frustrated by Schofield's baffling reactions.

Following the 4-1 home defeat to Hereford back in February he stated that he was proud of the players, a statement that completely puzzled City's fans. I always got the impression watching Schofield's management style that he didn't care whether we won or lost, backed up by his monotone reactions to when we beat Barnet 5-0 one week and Rochdale 7-1 the next.

When Schofield was sacked I was personally delighted, if we'd have kept him on then we would more than likely still be on the 8 points we were on when he left. His refusal to play players such as Ben Wright seems almost foolish now given Wright's form since he became a regular in the side.

 

The first game without Schofield was the home game against Peterborough, the difference was immense as you could tell that the players were glad to be rid of him, the players were trying again. Just under 2 weeks later and Pete Jackson was appointed as Lincoln City's manager. With him being my own personal choose I was absolutely delighted and since then I've had 3 or 4 lengthy conversations with him and his personal enthusiasm has started to rub off on me.

Ever since the Chester game the performances have definitely improved (with the exception of the Chesterfield game) and it makes such a change to see the players play with that sort of passion.

Then again that could have something do with the injection of youth into the side. The side that beat Barnet on Saturday was the 7th youngest that City have fielded since WW2 and the fact that we've won 3 of the last 4 league games with these youth players says it all about the quality coming up through the system.

Similar to how Peter Jackson started out at Huddersfield, introducing several youth teamers into the side such as David Mirfin, Andy Holdsworth, Nathan and Tom Clarke, amongst others. That young side went on to change a club on the freefall into a side that regularly challenged for promotion to the Championship a few years back.

Whether the Imps can replicate the performances of those youngster is up to much debate, although the early performances of players such as Danny Hone or Lenell John-Lewis have joined in the rising enthustiasm around Sincil Bank.

As for Peter Jackson's Five Month Plan for Promotion, I must admit that at first I was quite sceptical about this, I thought that it was good being optimistic but it was slightly unrealistic. However, I'm now fully buying it and I'm actually starting to believe that it might be possible to make the Playoffs at the very least. It feels odd that after 5 years I can still look at the Playoffs thinking it would be great to make them.

Looking at the table and seeing that we're only (and I say only in a slightly optimistic manner) 13 points off of the Playoffs makes me think that it's not actually that impossible to make them, especially given that we've gotten fixtures coming up that we have a realistic chance of winning.

Yes, I know Darlington are doing well but when they come to us they won't have played for nearly 2 and a half weeks. Then we're away at Bradford and Grimsby, two sides who despite being the Imps at Sincil Bank didn't actually look that good.

Bury are always a tough game but they're starting to go into some bad form and then Rochdale are unpredictable.

If results go our way over the next few weeks then we could be heading into the new year with the top half, possibly even the Playoffs in sight and then we can push on from there. However, no matter what happens the quicker we get to 50 points the better, especially now that we're slowly starting to pull away from the sides below us.

Come on City.