Thursday 5 April 2018 06:53, UK
Lincoln City were languishing in the National League when Danny Cowley arrived in 2016. Now they are targeting promotion to League One and looking forward to a Wembley final this Sunday. Adam Bate speaks to Imps captain Luke Waterfall to find out how they have done it.
Sunday will be an emotional day for Luke Waterfall whatever happens at Wembley. The Lincoln City captain has a coachload of 30 people making the trip south for his team's Checkatrade Trophy final against Shrewsbury Town. His dad Paul attends every game but for this one he will be joined by the rest of Waterfall's family, including the player's two children.
"We are all really looking forward to it," Waterfall tells Sky Sports. "It will be brilliant. It will be a massive honour to walk the lads out at Wembley and it would be an even bigger achievement if I were able to get my hands on that trophy. The possibility of lifting a trophy at Wembley is something that you dream of when you are a little boy."
The possibility of lifting a trophy at Wembley is something that you dream of when you are a little boy.
For much of the past decade, the prospect of Waterfall finding himself in this position had been no more than that - just a dream. As a teenager, he was released by Barnsley. A move to Tranmere did not work out and there were unsuccessful trials at Oxford and York too. He has had to work his way back up through the league the hard way.
"I have had loads of setbacks," says Waterfall, "but I wouldn't be the only one. I'm sure there are hundreds of players with similar stories. There were eight of us who were second-year trainees at Barnsley and every one of us got released. I look back to that youth team and I think there is only me who is playing at any sort of level now.
"I ended up dropping into non-league and that can be particularly difficult for a young player in my position as a centre-back because teams usually want experience there. Luckily enough, I found a manager called Kevin Wilson who was at Ilkeston Town at the time. They were in the Conference North back then and I managed to get 40 games at 18 years old.
"I owe Kevin a lot for throwing me in. From there, I went to Gainsborough for three years and it did me the world of good if I am honest. I could have been playing U21 football somewhere and then got released. If that had happened I would probably have struggled much more than I did. Playing men's football as a teenager made me a better player.
"It may have been Conference North but I got games under my belt. I was up against proper centre-forwards. There was Jason Lee at the end of his career at Boston. I remember facing Matt Rhead too and he is obviously now a team-mate of mine. Playing against those guys as a teenager was a rude awakening but it stood me in good stead."
Even so, it has taken time for Waterfall to flourish. There was a bit-part role in Scunthorpe's 2014 promotion to the third tier and a loan spell at Mansfield but prior to this season he had still only made seven starts in league football. Now Waterfall is a key member of a Lincoln team not only targeting silverware but also chasing promotion to League One.
It is a dramatic development for the 27-year-old but also for Lincoln. Despite their pedigree, having spent more than 100 seasons as a Football League club, upon being relegated in 2011, they endured five consecutive bottom-half finishes in the National League. Everything changed in the summer of 2016 when two brothers from Braintree turned up at Sincil Bank.
Danny Cowley, assisted by his brother Nick, quickly set about transforming the club. The pair delivered promotion back to the Football League at the first attempt as well as becoming the first non-league team in 103 years to reach the quarter-final of the FA Cup thanks to victories over Ipswich, Brighton and Burnley. Now sixth in League One, the run continues.
"The last 20 months or so have been unreal," says Waterfall. "I was there the year before that and have had the chance to see where the club has come from since Danny and Nicky came in. It is unreal in such a short space of time, it really is. The fanbase that we have got was always there but you have to remember the club had been struggling for six years.
"The main thing that they introduced was the professionalism. They run the place like it is a Championship club really and they have done ever since they walked through the door. We do pre-hab and we do gym work. The training is so intense. It is the hardest that I have done in my career and it is every week. I am the fittest I have ever been by a long way.
"We also do a lot of video analysis as well. That was quite rare for a team playing in the National League. I don't think many other teams were doing it so we were going into games with a huge head start on our opponents. We knew all of their plans going into games and I don't think they were doing the same work on us."
Lincoln are unlikely to be able to count on such an advantage on Sunday when they find themselves up against a Shrewsbury side that has topped League One for much of the season and is still chasing an unlikely promotion to the Championship. The Imps will be the underdogs at Wembley but it is a role they are well used to by now.
"We were underdogs in the FA Cup four or five times last season," says Waterfall. "We have been underdogs a couple of times in this Checkatrade Trophy too. We beat Peterborough when they were flying and I think we were probably underdogs against Chelsea as they had some fantastic young players but we managed to get through that test as well.
"We have tasted some big games over the last two seasons and there is a massive buzz around the whole city not just the club so we are hoping that experience should stand us in good stead on Sunday." It would be some story if Lincoln can do it. But in Luke Waterfall it seems they have a captain who perfectly embodies that underdog spirit.
