Lincoln City depths of Steve Tilson nightmare are a distant memory - it heightens Danny Cowley admiration | OneFootball

It is some 14 years since Lincoln City suffered crushing relegation, and the club has been revitalised to an even loftier standing in the time since.

It is some 14 years since Lincoln City suffered a crushing relegation, and the club has been revitalised to an even loftier standing in the time since.

Steve Tilson declared that his Imps team were simply not good enough as they slumped to relegation from League Two at the end of the 2010/11 season.

But, after more than half a decade away from the Football League, Danny Cowley and brother Nicky led Lincoln back into a position amongst the top 92 teams in the country. In doing so, they made the disaster of six years prior a distant memory.

Gutting Imps relegation from the Football League

The depths of despair were all too deep for Lincoln as they fell like a led balloon out of League Two. City claimed a single point in their last nine games of the season, losing eight of them, en route to final day relegation against Aldershot Town.

Lincoln had reached five consecutive play-offs, failing to get over the final hurdle and into League One with repeated heartache, throughout the 2000s. Though, nothing could have prepared them for the horror show that came.

A run of 11 games without victory saw City drop from safe standing to the centre of the relegation dogfight in the space of two months. The Imps collected just two points from the last 33 available in the season and slumped lower than Barnet to seal their crushing fate.

It was a dark hour at Sincil Bank, and one that led to years of disillusionment, smaller gates, and sorry times before Cowley helped turn the club around and rekindle the love in Lincoln fans' hearts.

Manager Tilson spoke of a lacking character after Aldershot sealed City's relegation back in 2011, summarising a dismal and ultimately costly period for the football club.

Simply put, the episode was a nightmare for the Imps. A feat that was so remarkable in the state and brevity of the collapse from what appeared certain safety to what became a infamous relegation.

The Danny Cowley-led Lincoln City rise

However, Lincoln soon rose back up again.

The National League remains one of the hardest divisions to escape from, with just a sole automatic promotion place and an always hotly-contested play-off race alongside it.

That did not stop the Imps claiming 99 points in their title-winning season, rising from mid-table finishes in the campaign before to a quick and impressive promotion under the Cowley brothers. They got over the line with victory over Macclesfield, creating the polar opposite scene at Sincil Bank to the one that had seen them relegated six years prior.

The much-loved Cowley brothers were a god-send for Lincoln, and have been remembered in understandably and deservedly lofty terms. They carried the club from their crushing relegation, and years of nearly moments proceeding that, to a place of excitement.

The promotion into League Two was now just the juxtaposition of the relegation of 2011, but the first step in a dominant era at the Imps.

Their 2017 title win was quickly followed by another two years on, seeing Lincoln into the third tier with a Wembley Stadium win and EFL Trophy under their belts in the process.