IF ever a manager really needed a good start, it was Lincoln City’s Chris Moyses.
He’d seen the restless natives coming, and it wasn’t just his lack of managerial experience that had them reaching for their pitchforks.
That’s perhaps unfair. He had experience, but when Lincoln Moorlands Railway and local Sunday League side Ivy Tavern are your selling point, the unease at Sincil Bank was understandable.
It wasn’t purely the relatively empty CV that gave supporters’ cause for concern when he was appointed in December. Some accused the businessman of buying his new job.
Moyses has pumped money into Lincoln City after joining the board of directors after the club’s relegation from the Football League back in 2011.
Not millions, but enough for some fans to think that the 49-year-old replacing Gary Simpson was a commercial deal, and not in their club’s best interests.
Moyses wants to clear up the discomfort. He says he’s not bought the position of manager, and he has the philosophy to remove the gloom that has hung over the place since 8,000 watched their relegation against Aldershot four years ago.
He wants them to trust him, and buy into the ethos of bonding and team ethic that he knows works.
The man’s got a point. Last Saturday’s 4-0 loss to Eastleigh – a game which saw Lincoln handicapped for 72 minutes after Jon Nolan’s reckless red card – was the rarest of blips.
They had won their previous seven, and like we seem to see every year the team that’s struggling one minute is suddenly transformed into a plausible promotion contender the next.
He said: “I was on the board of directors but a lot of the time my role was as director of football. I was a link between the managers and the board rather than transfers.
“I was asked to take over as caretaker as I was also on the coaching staff – I didn’t push for it. I would never demand anything from anyone here, all I wanted to do was help.
“I’ve been around the first team for two years now, but opportunities sometimes throw themselves up, don’t they?
“I have invested money into the club over the years. When I first came to the club it was when Lincoln had just lost its League status. The youth department was at risk due to the lack of Central Funding that not being in the 92 brings – I felt I had to do something. The clubs just don’t get the financial support in the Conference that they really should. I wanted to help.
“That’s where some of the money went that I put in. I was a director and now I’m the manager, but people find all kinds of paths in life and I just want to make the most of this one I’m on.”
His start has defied the doubters but whether the former roofer can build a bond with the club’s long-suffering fans and install a belief that the club can maintain this buoyancy so early into his tenure remains to be seen.
The fact he is a former Imp will help, though if you blinked you may have missed it. Four appearances in two years from 1982-84 means playing that card from the off wasn’t justifiable.
But certainly on his side was the derby destruction of Grimsby Town on December 28.
Results were what he needed and Moyses, who worked for Royal Mail before building his own business, has delivered. After playing for Halifax Town and Boston United in the 80s, his focus was then on creating his own empire.
EM Contracting, the gas pipe laying specialists, is now worth millions and he is taking the values he learned in building the company into rebuilding a famous club.
“I wouldn’t be doing this job if I didn’t think we had a chance of getting in the top five and taking the club back to its former glory in the year ahead,” he added. “This is a fantastic club that perhaps needs to work a little differently and to try and do things other ways.
“I feel I had some unfinished business in the game so when my son Sam starting playing for Lincoln United in 2008 I took my coaching badges. I went on to become assistant manager and started learning the game again.
“This opportunity has fallen my way and so far it has been a brilliant experience. We have worked hard to get where we are. We have a great group of players, a good team ethos – we work hard together, and we enjoy ourselves together. They have made me very proud.
“When you put the effort into people and they put the effort back it’s a good feeling. We seen the results and they are getting their rewards.
“Team-work and togetherness has been behind everything I do. I built my business by working well with good, strong people. It’s about those around you and the relationships you make.
“Why have the club not looked like bouncing back? I haven’t got a clue! We have had some good players in the past few years, but sometimes it’s not all about that – it’s about having the players that believe in what you are trying to do and I think we’re getting closer and closer with that.
“It’s a mixture of people being honest with you – giving 100 per cent every time they pull the short on and believing in what you are doing.
“How far that can take you, I don’t know. But it’s a process I believe in and one that I think will benefit Lincoln City more than any other.”
