Lincoln United Football Club was founded in 1938 as Lincoln Amateurs, playing in the Lincoln League. In 1951, the Club signed its first professional player (on 5 shillings a week, 25p in today’s money) and Lincoln Amateurs was re-named Lincoln United aka ‘The Whites’.

The Club won its first honours in the 1963-64 season with the Lincolnshire League Championship and the Lincolnshire Senior ‘B’ Cup. Three years later, the Whites joined the Yorkshire League and, once again, completed the League and Cup double. The Club went on to play in a number of Leagues, including (as founder members) the Northern Counties East League and the Central Midlands League. In one of its most impressive periods, the Club was promoted three times between 1987 and 1990.

In the mid-90s, United entered the Unibond Division One and then moved into the restructured Unibond Premier Division and won the Lincolnshire FA Senior Shield. In 2008, Lincoln United was relegated to the Unibond Division One South, now known as the BetVictor NPL South East Division, where it has remained to this day.

Throughout its history, Lincoln United has been a major force in the city of Lincoln’s football scene, thanks to the efforts over the years of its officials, players, volunteers and supporters – too many to record in full. Some names do warrant a mention, however, like the legendary manager, Fred Green; former Secretary, Bryan Smith; former chairmen, Keith Roe and Robin Taylor; current President and long-time benefactor, Maurice Bull; and managers, Allen Crombie, Gary Goddard, John Wilkinson and Terry Fleming. Key players in recent years include Tony Simmons, Rick Ranshaw, Terry Fleming, Gary Crosby, Steve Carter and record appearance-maker, Brendan McDaid.

The last few years have seen the Club ‘in transition’ after a period of relative stagnation, on and off the field. A new Committee was formed in 2010-11 with three main objectives: Gain Promotion; Improve the Club’s Facilities; and Strengthen its Links with the Community. Improvements off the field were not mirrored on it and after a disappointing first two seasons, which saw the Club flirting dangerously close with relegation, United changed its management team and appointed new Manager, Dave Frecklington, and Assistant Manager, Sam Wilkinson in 2013-14. After a disappointing first season, ‘Freck’ went on to take the Club to 9th in his second season and, for the first time in the Club’s history, into the Play-offs in his third and last season.

For the 2016-17 season, United saw Sam Wilkinson as its new Manager with Chris Hall and Stuart Reddington as Assistant Manager and First Team Coach, respectively. The new Management Team, and what is largely the squad of last season’s players, have already brought success to the Club with a place in the Lincolnshire FA Senior Cup Final, having knocked out teams from higher Leagues in the Quarter and Semi-Finals. That success was rewarded with a first ever Lincolnshire Senior Cup win when we beat Stamford in the Final.

The club also won the Divisional Fair Play award and the Management team recorded the best-behaved benchmarks and still we remained competitive right to the end of a busy season.

Added to that Trophy win was a superb run in the Emirates FA Cup followed by a similar run in the Buildbase FA Trophy. Those two meant we got behind in our fixtures but a great run after Christmas took us onto the fringes of the Play-offs but not quite close enough. We repeated that late run of success in 2017-18 but just missed out again.

The 2018-19 season saw Lincoln finish 14th in the NPL Division. In March 2019, the experienced Steve Housham was appointed manager to start from the 2019-20 season. Also, Lincoln City Ladies team announced that they were re-forming and playing from Ashby Avenue, the home of Lincoln United, for the 2019-20 season.

The future looks bright for the Whites.