The dust has settled on the historic promotion that saw Lindum Hockey become the first team in Lincolnshire to reach England’s second-tier of the sport.
The Lincoln-based club have won league titles in two consecutive years, reaching new heights for the county.
Speaking to LincSport, player-coach Matt Bell said: “Hopefully it’s a wake up to people who underestimate Lincolnshire hockey. We are a forgotten county, but lots of our players are from Lincolnshire. We want Lindum to be the pinnacle of our area.”
“We want to inspire other clubs as well, the rise has taken some time and there’s no stopping another Lincolnshire team from doing that too,” he added.
Lindum secured their back-to-back promotion with a final day win over Wakefield on Sunday, 24 March.
Bell described the victory as his “proudest moment” at the club, echoing the sentiments of captain Rob Johnstone, who spoke to LincSport after the 4-1 victory.
Bell said: “We are all on the same page and we enjoy winning. There’s no passengers in the group, we’ve got a culture at the club. The atmosphere is great.”
“The fact that it’s homegrown Lincolnshire lads doing this makes it even more special. It wasn’t all hunky dory at the start, but hockey brought us together. Now we’re mates as well as teammates,” Lindum’s player-coach added.
Hundreds supported the Yellow Submarine as they stretched over the line with their win against Wakefield.
“We’ve got compliments from opposition teams about our support. You don’t realise how special it is until someone says it. We’ve had more away support than there has been home fans for 50% of games,” he said.
The promotion means Lindum will move into the second-tier of English hockey, just one level below the elite level of the sport in England. They have been promoted into the Division One North.
Bell looked ahead to the new season, saying: “We will play lots of teams we don’t know about, but they don’t know about us either. There’s lots of university teams as well, so that will be a challenge. We’ll be playing teams who are established in the premier league.”
“We’ve got to expect an up in quality, but our lads have played at a higher level for a while,” he added.
Lindum have proved themselves on the national stage this season, losing just one game during the entire campaign. They have kept a flawless home record, winning every game on their own patch.
Bell said: “We’re not losing sleep. We’re embracing the challenge and we’ll see what Lindum can do again.”
Lincoln’s premier hockey club will be looking to create yet more history as they tread into ground that no Lincolnshire team has touched before.