This is for you! - Danny Cowley pays tribute to Lincoln City fans after securing title

A typically modest Danny Cowley highlighted the impact of the Lincoln City’s supporters and players after clinching the League Two title.

A goal-less draw with Tranmere was enough to seal the Imps’ first Football League crown for 43 years and only the fifth in the club’s 135-year history.

Fittingly, it came two years to the day since City secured the National League title and promotion back to the Football League after six agonising years in non-league.

In between, Cowley and brother Nicky led the Imps to the Checkatrade Trophy at Wembley amid an unprecedented era of success at Sincil Bank.

But securing promotion to League One, and now the title, represents the best achievement so far by the inspirational brothers from Essex.

Cowley said: “This has been a whole club, a whole county, a whole city effort. We’ve said that a lot, but it has, everybody has contributed.

“The fans were saying well done to us, but we should be saying well done to them because we wouldn’t be where we are now, with the League Two title, without everybody’s contribution.”

On his players, Cowley added:  “The players have been brilliant from day one. Their attitude and their work ethic has been first class. There are no energy-sappers, no whingers, no moaners.

“They have to work long days – well, in football world context – but they’re willing to do that.

“There are no egos and everybody puts the team first. When you’ve got that, when you’re all together, then you can achieve wonderful things. That’s how it’s proved.

“The aim all season has been promotion. Once we got the promotion, we asked the group [about their objectives] because they’ve got to own it.

“If you force another objective on them, it can be really difficult, but they’re winners and they desperately wanted to win the league.

“They’ve been top all season so we felt we were deserving of it. You’ve got to credit the players because they’ve been immense.”

The Imps wanted to seal the title with a victory in front of their own fans.

While they fell short of that target, they produced an excellent display against a Tranmere side pushing for promotion themselves.

“I thought we played really well actually. We did everything apart from find that goal,” said Cowley.

“Credit to both sets of players because they played with real energy and intensity. Considering they’d played just 72 hours earlier in hot conditions, it was a really good game. It’s a fantastic result for us.”

Mansfield’s defeat at Oldham meant a draw was enough for City and Cowley admitted he was keeping an eye on events at Boundary Park.

“We wanted to win from the outset,” he said. “Once we got to about 60 minutes and we knew the other scores, we were aware that a point would probably be enough.

“We managed to close the game out before the end because it’s about winning.”