I’ve just watched the poignant rendition of Z-Cars played before Everton’s final game at Goodison Park.
I have no interest in the Premier League, but I do value football tradition and I do understand that for many supporters of top-flight clubs, their team is to them what Lincoln is to me. I’m not talking about the fans of Liverpool or Man Utd who have never been to a game, I mean the diehards, the ‘dad and lads’ or families that go every week. Premier League teams have those, probably in decreasing numbers, but they do.
Seeing the faces in the crowd, as you can see below, it got me thinking. It actually got me welling up if I’m honest, seeing the curtain being brought down on a footballing stage as proud as Goodison Park. It’s part of Everton’s identity, and I can’t help but feel that when a club moves ground, a little part of it dies. Maybe that’s dramatic, and maybe they forge a new path, but Derby County now are a different prospect to Derby County at the Baseball Ground. It’s like a soft reset of your history, and those clubs that cling on to their grounds also cling on to their history.
Everton bid farewell to Goodison Park with a beautiful violin rendition of Z-Cars 💙
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— Football on TNT Sports (@footballontnt) May 18, 2025
I’m not sure I’m explaining that well. Think of it this way: Sincil Bank has a rich history, and you and I have memories of our times there. If we were to move grounds, the new ground would be the new Lincoln, and while we’d retain the history and connection, things would always be a bit different. I guess it’s like moving house – you look back on old homes as eras, and moving to a new ground would bring in a new, forever different era.
The general consensus in the Stacey West group chat was we’d all be gutted to leave Sincil Bank, and I wanted to explore a few personal reasons why. Why do we get attached to our ground? The club would still be the club, but for me, your ground is probably the one defining part of the club that, when changed, changes the culture and identity. Take Shrewsbury at the Gay Meadow – bang in the centre of town, always flooding, tight access point – it felt like a close ground for a close-knit club. Sure, the New Meadow is great for sponsors, but a trip there now feels like we’re playing a different club.
I don’t ever want my perception of Lincoln City to be different. I don’t ever want us to leave Sincil Bank.
I remember my first trip to the place I call my spiritual home. It was with my Dad and my Granddad on a cold Sunday afternoon in October. The ground was ramshackle, I think that’s fair – the St Andrews stand had been demolished, the Railway End was more like a shed, which offered a little better protection from the elements than the exposed Sincil Bank side. Only the South Park Stand, the Hunters Stand as I knew it, seemed to deliver any comfort, and even that was past its best.
None of that mattered because I was there watching football with my Dad. I’d never seen 2,000 people all wanting the same thing, and I’d yet to experience them arguing incessantly on social media about how to achieve it, so the feeling of community was overwhelming. Sure, we got beaten 4-1 and I’d never previously experienced such collective disappointment. It all soaked into me, like red wine on a carpet and to this day, nobody has got it out.
Over the next 12 months, I saw the lows and highs there, from relegation to promotion. My entire family, uncles, brother, parents, cousins and grandparents were behind the goal against Wycombe. Over the next ten years, the ground changed completely, four new stands, but it was always Sincil Bank. We still walked past Scorer Street to get there. We still saw the same shops, the Sincil Drain, had the same routines. That’s where the love springs, I think, not just from the bricks and mortar, but for the once fortnightly trips to a single place to come together. There are so many similarities between religion and football, and making a pilgrimage to your place of worship (or penance) is one of them.
Over the years, Sincil Bank has been a crutch for me. I recall in 2001, being 22 and madly in love. I was due to go on holiday with said girl, but before we met up, I had to go to Sincil Bank to watch us play Hartlepool. I still remember getting a text message telling me she wanted to break up, and had gone without me. Utter heartbreak, plus we lost 2-1, but I was at the ground, and took comfort from the people I was with. The same goes for 2009, another breakup, this time before a game. I went out the night before, broke my hand punching a wall out of heartbreak, but the next day got treatment from the medical team. I found solace, again, at Sincil Bank (we drew 0-0 with Torquay).
I’m sure we all have these stories. Just a few days after my breakdown in 2011, I saw us lose 6-0 to Rotherham, back on the terraces for my first trip outside after my life collapsed around me. In 2016, we watched City beat Ipswich in the FA Cup, only for my Dad to lose his brother hours later. All the time, we’re at the ground, living those intense personal moments in surroundings we feel comfortable in. It outlasts houses, relationships, jobs and any other place of comfort or familiarity you might have.
Then, of course, there’s the emotion the football produces. Piled on to those personal moments, there’s such collective joy at times like May 1988 against Wycombe, or April 2017 against Macclesfield. Those are the moments that have no parallel, the shared moments where 2,000 or 10,000 people all experience unbridled happiness. Momentarily, everyone is together, everyone is sharing in something that can never truly be explained or replicated outside of the football spectrum. Those moments, when enjoyed at your home ground, simply solidify that love for a place even more.
One huge moment that I have to mention was the Sunderland play-off semi-final in 2021. After being locked up in our homes for so long, unable to watch football and see our football family, it was surreal. I remember the goosebumps at hearing just the rumble of a crowd as we got into the ground. Sure, we had facemasks on, couldn’t mingle with supporters, but life was, briefly, back to normal, and where did it happen? Sincil Bank.
I remember that Tom Hopper goal, the first roar of celebration I’d witnessed in more than a year. I’m feeling emotional just writing about it, that overwhelming wave of relief, not just at the goal and result, but potentially seeing the end of COVID and a return to normal life. It all happened at Sincil Bank, at my church, my safe place. My home.
Everton fans won’t lose those moments, but when they kick off in their new purpose-built ground, things will be a little different. The first few weeks will be like the first few nights in a new house, with snags, complaints and grumbles. Over time, they’ll make new memories there, they’ll have new emotions, and it’ll become their new home. However, at the back of their minds, there will always be a fondness, nay, yearning, for their old home, just like many people have a fondness for their first home. There’s a romance about it, a nostalgia that can’t be replicated.
That’s why I really hope I never have to listen to a rendition of the Dambusters at Sincil Bank ahead of a move to an out-of-town venue with better seats, fewer queues, better food and better parking. Because if Sincil Bank is ever knocked down, a little part of me would die with it.