Lincoln earn promotion to Championship to end 65-year wait | OneFootball

Lincoln City have sealed promotion to the Championship with a dramatic stoppage time win over Reading, marking a first return to the English second tier in 65 years.

The Imps needed just a point to confirm their passage into the Championship for the 2026/27 campaign and were on course to get just that, even after Reading midfielder Lewis Wing had cancelled out Ryan One's early opener for Lincoln two minutes into second-half stoppage time.

But Jack Moylan scored a 96th-minute winner to secure a 2-1 win at the Select Car Leasing Stadium, putting the exclamation point on the visitors’ promotion.

The result means Michael Skubala's side now have an unassailable 19-point lead atop League One over third-placed Bradford City, with second-place Cardiff City sit 12 points adrift of Lincoln’s tally of 90.

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Lincoln snatched victory late on at Reading as they sealed promotion (Jacob King/PA Wire)

Lincoln have also stretched their unbeaten league run to 24 games having not lost since last November, with the league title now in their sights.

They return to the second tier for the first time since 1961, with only Crewe Alexandra - who haven’t played at that level in 102 years - experiencing a longer hiatus.

In that time away, Lincoln have dropped to as far as the National League, suffering relegation from League Two in 2010/11 and subsequently spending six seasons outside of the Football League, with the fifth tier infamously difficult to get out of thanks to its mere one automatic promotion place.

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Lincoln are back in the English second tier (Jacob King/PA Wire)

But in 2016/17, Lincoln stormed to the National League title while also staging a historic FA Cup run to the quarter-finals, knocking out then-Championship sides Ipswich and Brighton before dumping out Premier League Burnley at Turf Moor, only for their run to be emphatically ended at the hands of Arsenal.

They’ve been on the up ever since, earning promotion to the third tier in 2019, and after suffering League One play-off semi-final heartbreak in 2020/21 and narrowly missing out on a top-six finish in 2023/24, Lincoln have finally reached the promised land of the Championship.

Lincoln are the first team in the Football League to clinch promotion this season. As things stand, Coventry are 11 points clear of third place in the Championship and Bromley, who have never played third-tier football, are six points clear of fourth in League Two.