John Fallon: Irish linkage key to Lincoln's competitive edge
How does a canoe defeat a nuclear submarine in a marine battle? Enlisting the Irish is the rescue remedy Lincoln City have undertook.
Gross disparities exist across leagues and divisions in football but the Imps, with a stadium housing just over 10,000, stand out as defying market conditions to prosper.
They marched all the way to Wembley and the playoff final in 2021 and currently sit two points outside that zone in League One.
Trailing behind are the likes of Blackpool, Wigan Athletic and Reading, all part of the Premier League within the previous 13 years.
"In the football pyramid, there'll always be clubs unable to compete with others," stressed Liam Scully, Lincoln's chief executive.
"You can't win by going toe-to-toe with those same strategies, so we must specialise in order to have an edge. About five years ago, we realised that one of those opportunities is through our relationship with Ireland. We had a higher opinion of the talent there than our rivals."
They might wear red-and-white stripes but this isn't the Sunderland method of tapping into the Irish, whereby Niall Quinn and his Drumaville consortium assumed ownership, appointed Roy Keane and a slew of his compatriots were recruited to the playing staff.
Lincoln is American-owned, Harvey Jabara recently replacing South African Clive Nates as the largest shareholder.
Scully's Irish father had exposed him to the League of Ireland scene as a kid but the tactic of turning to their neighbour across the Irish sea has been embraced in faraway fields.
"After we'd agreed to sign Jack Moylan from Shelbourne last year, I'd get phonecalls from Harvey in Arizona every Friday," explained the CEO.
"It would be early in the day over there but he'd be
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