Lincoln’s new joint head coaches look ahead to club’s first time in 2nd tier for 65 years

Lincoln’s new joint head coaches Chris Cohen and Tom Shaw look ahead to the club’s first time in 2nd tier for 65 years.

The duo spoke with ITV’s Chris Dawkes a day before with the Imps find out their first fixtures of the Championship season.

Lincoln promoted from within after impressing as assistants, replacing Michael Skubala, who guided the club to the League One title, with 103 points from 46 games played.

Nice little chat this afternoon with the new joint head coaches of @LincolnCity_FC Chris Cohen and Tom Shaw. Both highly motivated ahead of the #imps first season in the 2nd tier for 65 years @itvcalendar @Staceywestblog pic.twitter.com/Gzh7F9dhvZ

— Chris Dawkes (@chrisdawkesITV) June 24, 2026

Interviewer: Yes, what a season it was for Lincoln City, but just weeks after clinching promotion to the Championship, head coach Michael Skubala decided, well, the grass was greener at Bristol City. His shoes were so big that they needed two men to fill them. And here they are. We’ve got Chris Cohen and Tom Shaw, the new joint managers of Lincoln City. Gentlemen, congratulations on the appointment. Was it a surprise when Michael left? And was it a surprise when you guys were appointed in his place?

Chris Cohen: “I think, no, when you have a season like we had last season, the head coach of any football club that gets 103 points in League One is going to be sought after and Michael was really good to us and we wish him absolutely all the best. But when we got the opportunity, when Jez and and Ron, owners, give us the opportunity to be the head coaches of an unbelievable football club, we were never going to turn it down. We’re really excited to work together and try and keep the club moving forwards.

Interviewer: “It’s not the first time that we’ve had joint head coaches, joint managers, but how’s it going to work between you two? Have you decided which is going to do which? One to pick the team, one to give team talks, that sort of thing?”

Tom Shaw: We’ve been working side by side for a number of years in our previous role, so we’ve found a way of working, a way of working that’s really influenced this football team and football club and taking it to where it is now. So that will continue. We will check and challenge each other all week. We’ll try and pick the holes in each other’s ideas till we land on the idea. And then at that point we are hell-bent and right behind it that it’s the right thing to do and we’ve got a nice bank of evidence that that works. But we trust each other massively on and off the training pitch and that’ll be the same moving forward using each other’s strengths, getting the best out of the players. And there’s two of us to be driving them every day as well, which I think will be useful.

Interviewer: Do you always agree, Chris?

Chris Cohen: Of course not, no, yeah. But we definitely have the same principles on and off the pitch. We have the same values. And like Tom said, if I come up with an idea, it’s Tom’s job to challenge it and vice versa. It works exactly the same. But at the end, when we walked out that room that we’ve just been in doing interviews, we walk out with one idea and we go hell for leather to try and win on a Saturday afternoon doing it. And that’s not going to change at all. We definitely debate, check and challenge each other. But ultimately, we come to the decision we think is best for the football club and go right after it.

Interviewer: How do you resolve arguments then?

Tom Shaw: We’ve got an idea at the start of the process for every training session every game plan. We know what it wants to look like and feel like and especially for our opponent. So we go along a process Thorough process takes a couple of days and we will have different ideas But we know what the end goal really needs to be and we’ve lived that for a period of time It’ll be the same we’re going into a very very excuse me very very tough level where we will respect the level, absolutely, but we want no fear in these players. We don’t want to take one step back for anybody. So we will be trying to bring this amazing product we had in League One into the championship and see how far we can take it.

Interviewer: They say that football management, can never switch off. I imagine especially at this time of year when you’re trying to get your squad in place, that sort of thing. Have you been on the phone to each other constantly over the last few weeks?

Chris Cohen: Yeah, we were anyway, but the phone’s definitely got hotter since the announcement that we were going to do the head coach role. But yeah, we’ve, I couldn’t tell you a day even when I’ve left a couple of times and come back where we haven’t spoken on the phone. It’s how we, I think we, I can’t if you can remember a day where we haven’t spoken. We use each other as a sounding board. We give each other ideas, we help each other, but most importantly we trust each other and that’s why it gives this a really good chance of working we think is because of the trust we have between each other.

Interviewer: What do your partners think of that, you guys on the phone to each other?

Tom Shaw: Well they know each other now and they’ve been in the football

Interviewer: So they’re the same?

Tom Shaw: Yeah, yeah, yeah. While you talk they talk. Yeah, yeah. But there’s the odd roll of the eyes now and again at certain times of the night but they understand it, they’ve been in the football world with us for a long time and now the coaching and management world they understand what it is but we’ll be making plenty of time for family as well.

Interviewer: Now I know you guys, I imagine you’ll have been watching the World Cup of the last few weeks and England last night and you guys have represented England yourself Chris at under 17, under 16 and you Tom at senior level as well, so how do you think England have done and how do think they will do for the rest of the World Cup?

Chris Cohen: I think they’ve got an amazing squad haven’t they, they’ve got a top manager, they’ve got an incredible squad, the subs that they can bring on the pitch you we’re gonna yeah you’d hope and looking by the nature of the first two games even though last night weren’t perfect we’re gonna go really deep into the tournament and what an opportunity for them to do something that ain’t been replicated for 60 years.

Interviewer: Is it coming home Tom?

Tom Shaw: I really hope so, I think they’ve got brilliant chance.

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