Conor McGrandles has said it was an “easy” decision to return to Lincoln City this summer as he signed for the Imps for a third time.
The midfielder first signed for City in the summer of 2020 and went on to make 96 appearances for the club before earning a move to Charlton Athletic in 2022. The Scot then returned to the LNER Stadium on loan in January of last season, making five appearances before being ruled out with an injury for the remainder of the campaign.
He has now made the move permanent once again, and speaking at a recent media day, said: “It was a pretty easy decision this time. Obviously, I was desperate to come back on loan when the opportunity came up in January. I think the familiarity and knowing the place helps. I had a good spell here last time, so to know what’s around, and the fans, it was just a good thing for me to do, to come back.”
McGrandles was the Imps’ first signing of the summer, and has now been following by a string of additions.
He also spoke of his excitement at getting to work with a talented squad: “It’s going to be good. Every single player in there at the moment is a very good player and they’ll be thinking they should play, so hopefully it will get the best out of all of us to push each other. The other boys in midfield are top players, so it’s not going to be easy.”
This move brought to an end a difficult two year spell at The Valley for McGrandles, as he made just 19 appearances for Charlton across that period.
“There was quite a lot of [reasons why I did not work out]. I think I got injured too many times, I had loads of bad luck there, and the manager that brought me in got sacked pretty soon after. So, it just didn’t really fit after that. There’s loads of other things behind the scenes as well, but mainly bad luck and sometimes it just doesn’t work out,” he said.
McGrandles was part of the Lincoln City squad that travelled to Spain for warm weather pre-season training.
Feature Image Credit: Graham Burrell