Lincoln City Championship Homecoming Parade

The party starts on High Street. At 14:30 BST, Lincoln City’s promotion story rolls out of the junction with South Park Avenue, an open-top bus packed with players, staff and silverware pulling the club’s new status into full view.

From there, the route becomes a moving tribute to a season that has dragged the Imps into the Championship and dragged a city with them.

The bus drops down Tentercroft Street, the usual traffic replaced by scarves, flags and camera phones. This is no ordinary Sunday drive. It is the club’s recent history made visible: a climb from lower-league grind to the edge of the second tier, now paraded past shopfronts and upstairs windows.

Into the city centre, the noise gathers. St Mary’s Street, Wigford Way, Silver Street – familiar names, suddenly part of a map that will live long in local memory. Office workers lean out, families press against barriers, children on shoulders strain for a glimpse of their new heroes.

The coach then swings towards the skyline that has watched over Lincoln for centuries. The route loops around Lincoln Cathedral, the bus dwarfed by the stone and history above it, the players framed against one of the country’s most recognisable silhouettes. A modern football story, circling an ancient landmark.

From there, the parade pushes on along Newport and Riseholme Road, the streets narrowing, the noise bouncing off houses and pubs. By now, the journey is less about the destination and more about the shared release: years of near-misses, long away days and cold Tuesday nights poured into one rolling celebration.

The club expects the parade to draw to a close at the Lincoln Imp pub at about 16:00 BST. It is a fitting full stop – a local landmark welcoming home a team that has just redrawn its own boundaries.

Lincoln City will wake up tomorrow as a Championship club all the same. But for a few hours this afternoon, every corner of the route belongs to them.