{"id":249288,"date":"2025-09-23T15:47:10","date_gmt":"2025-09-23T15:47:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/249288\/"},"modified":"2025-09-23T15:47:10","modified_gmt":"2025-09-23T15:47:10","slug":"lincolns-innovators-plan-old-fashioned-welcome-for-chelsea-superstars-lincoln","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/249288\/","title":{"rendered":"Lincoln\u2019s innovators plan old-fashioned welcome for Chelsea superstars | Lincoln"},"content":{"rendered":"

It is the makings of a pub\u2011quiz question: what do third\u2011tier Lincoln<\/a> City have in common with Barcelona, Bayern\u00a0Munich and Eintracht\u00a0Frankfurt? The answer is rooted in their forward-thinking approach, with the League One side one of a few clubs in the world to have a dedicated innovation arm tasked with maximising potential. There are always ideas bubbling away at the surface, one centring on using plant\u2011based energy gels, another on adjusting dressing-room lighting to heighten performance.<\/p>\n

Lincoln, ambitious and upwardly mobile, are flying high in League One despite a bottom-half budget and host Chelsea in the Carabao Cup<\/a> third round on the back of a run of one defeat in 12 matches. Reaching the second tier is the next major milestone in sight, a level they have not played at since 1961. Jason Futers, the club\u2019s chief growth and innovation officer, joined last year after a career in risk and technology across a number of startups.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt isn\u2019t about trying to find the next Facebook or Meta to invest in,\u201d Futers says. \u201cThis is looking across the board: what as a club can we do to grow and how can we innovate in that growth? We want to be a sustainable Championship club. And, like all clubs, we lose a lot of money, so we\u2019re looking at it and exploring how we can do things a bit differently.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lincoln recorded financial losses of \u00a32.9m in 2023-24 and their chief executive, Liam Scully, previously compared them competing in the third tier with battling against nuclear submarines with a canoe and a paddle. Last month Burnley became the latest club to create an innovation hub and Reading appointed a head of artificial intelligence. \u201cIt is rare but I think many more clubs will focus on innovation going forward,\u201d Futers says.<\/p>\n

Lincoln\u2019s Innovation Lab may feel like something from Minority Report but the club are working with dozens of companies to enhance efficiency, including a venture with the Swiss technology firm Quambio focused on reducing their carbon footprint. \u201cSimilar to many clubs, 70% of our carbon footprint is created by fan travel to and from our games,\u201d Futers says. \u201cWe\u2019re not taking the weight of the world on our shoulders but, if we can, we want to reduce our footprint.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lincoln were also kings of the set piece last season, scoring from 30, more than any other side in the top four tiers and have prospered from them three times this campaign. They are among the clubs to have embraced AI to aid their set-piece strategy, led by the former Wolves academy coach Scotty Fry, who translates the formula on to the pitch. Lincoln religiously practise set plays and players study them \u2013 for and against \u2013 via the Hudl analysis app. Rivals could be forgiven for queueing up for Lincoln\u2019s login. \u201cDoing set plays well has a massive impact on where you finish,\u201d the defender Sonny Bradley says. \u201cYou can\u2019t always rely on perfect patterns of play but you can always do the basics well.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jason Futers has joined Lincoln as their chief growth and innovation officer, after a career in technology startups. Photograph: Chris Vaughan Photography for Lincoln City FC<\/p>\n

Bradley, a summer arrival with more than 500 career appearances to his name, does not dress things up when asked what Chelsea<\/a> can expect at Sincil Bank. \u201cProbably a difference to their previous three away games,\u201d he says of visits to Manchester United, Bayern Munich and Brentford. \u201cWe have to accept that they\u2019re going to have a lot of possession \u2013 they will probably dominate the ball \u2013 but that\u2019s fine. I think that some people need to understand that you can control a game out of possession.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are well aware we will have to pick our moments. I think if we win any sort of free-kicks around the halfway line, maybe even 10 yards inside our own half, we potentially could be loading their box. It might not look great, it might not be easy on the eye, but we will be attempting a lot of direct play, a lot of free-kicks, definitely a lot of long throws. We\u2019ll try our best to disrupt them and win the game. It is up to us to find a way.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bradley faced Chelsea in the FA\u00a0Cup with Luton four years ago<\/a>, with Frank Lampard\u2019s then side prevailing 3-1 behind closed doors amid lockdown restrictions at Stamford Bridge. His first recollection of the game is how the multiball system \u2013 which Luton were advised would not be in operation \u2013 was the catalyst for Tammy Abraham\u2019s first goal en\u00a0route to a hat-trick. \u201cNext thing the ball is in the back of our net,\u201d he says. \u201cIt was a strange experience because when you play in those big games you want the fans to be there, but because of the lockdown it was almost like a pre-season atmosphere.\u201d<\/p>\n

skip past newsletter promotion<\/a><\/p>\n

Sign up to Football Daily<\/p>\n

Kick off your evenings with the Guardian’s take on the world of football<\/p>\n

Privacy Notice: <\/strong>Newsletters may contain information about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. If you do not have an account, we will create a guest account for you on theguardian.com<\/a> to send you this newsletter. You can complete full registration at any time. For more information about how we use your data see our Privacy Policy<\/a>. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy<\/a> and Terms of Service<\/a> apply.<\/p>\n

The Lincoln City strip is decorated with lines of binary code that spells out \u201cWe Are Imps\u201d, Lincoln\u2019s nickname, in recognition of mathematician George Boole, who was born in the city. Photograph: Chris Vaughan Photography for Lincoln City FC<\/p>\n

With the players unable to swap shirts after the game, Chelsea\u2019s kit man washed them and sent a bag to Luton. \u201cWe shared them out and, even though he didn\u2019t play, there was an N\u2019Golo Kant\u00e9 shirt that I took home. I definitely won\u2019t ever wear it because it\u2019s one of the smallest shirts I\u2019ve ever seen. But it\u2019s a good one for my collection,\u201d Bradley says, laughing.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was a Hull fan growing up so if I played against their former players, Boaz Myhill, Michael Turner, I would always swap with them. I\u2019ve got [Cristiano] Ronaldo, [Wayne] Rooney, [Lionel] Messi shirts, a [Daniel] Sturridge, a [Divock] Origi. I\u2019ve got a room in my house with a few shirts on the wall, but at the moment it is only my shirts so when people come in they only talk about me and not other players.\u201d Presumably the aim is to keep it that way on Tuesday? \u201cHopefully,\u201d Bradley says, smiling.<\/p>\n

It is fitting that Lincoln\u2019s red\u2011and-white striped home shirts feature a nod to innovation, with the kit honouring the work of the pioneering mathematician George Boole, who was born in the city on Silver Street in 1815. The strip is decorated with lines of binary code that spells out \u201cWe Are Imps\u201d, Lincoln\u2019s nickname.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe thought it could speak to what we\u2019re doing as a club,\u201d says Futers, flagging how the clothing tag of their third kit contains seeds from the common dog-violet, the county flower of Lincolnshire, which fans can then grow themselves. \u201cWe take things seriously, but we don\u2019t take ourselves too seriously. We love the ability to really celebrate our community.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It is the makings of a pub\u2011quiz question: what do third\u2011tier Lincoln City have in common with Barcelona,…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":249289,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[45],"tags":[221,62,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-249288","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-soccer","8":"tag-soccer","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-united-states","11":"tag-unitedstates","12":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115254397726208388","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/249288","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=249288"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/249288\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/249289"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=249288"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=249288"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=249288"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}