CHEERS BUT NO BEERS FOR LINCOLN HEROES
Seconds before Lincoln city’s passage to the FA cup quarter-finals was sealed, a number of Burnley’s catering staff frantically rushed to deliver a crate of beer to the away team dressing room.
A lovely gesture, you would think. The first non-League side through to the last eight of the famous old cup since 1914 and a few beers seemed appropriate.
not for Lincoln manager danny cowley and his brother and assistant nicky.
‘We got rid of that,’ said the Imps boss. ‘We’re a professional football team. We’re mid-journey, we’re mid-season. We’ll celebrate at the end of the season when we get to where we want to get to.
‘our preparation has to start with them recovering properly for Tuesday night against north Ferriby. This isn’t a social time.’
He is right. While his side have caught the imagination of the nation, nothing has changed the club’s priorities for this season — returning to the Football League after a six-year absence.
Indeed, sean Raggett’ s 89th- minute header that just crossed the line would end up scuppering cowley’s plan for saturday afternoon. He had hoped to leave this lunchtime game and get to north Ferriby’s national League match against dover. The trip from Lancashire to the east Riding of Yorkshire would have taken about an hour and a half.
It was a journey that would never happen. As soon as referee Graham scott blew his full-time whistle cowley’s phone ‘blew up’ due to all the messages and calls.
‘It was mad,’ he said. ‘I wasn’t prepared. I’m rarely speechless but I hadn’t prepared anything to say if we won so in the dressing room no one knew what to do. Then off goes the phone. calls from everyone. Requests to go on every TV channel, near enough. I had to turn so many down.’
But not Match of the Day. Those closest to cowley know he rarely takes five minutes to relax but every saturday he makes sure he’s in front of the box ready for 10.30pm.
He completed all of his media duties at Turf Moor, which took well over two hours, before departing with nicky to the BBc’s studios in salford. He even had a shave — something he didn’t do before his wedding to Kate.
some of Burnley’s staff must have known his players would head back to Lincolnshire unsupervised because another crate of beer was presented to the Lincoln team bus once the brothers were out of sight. no thank you, came the response again. But why not? A couple of harmless beers to help savour the moment?
Alex Woodyard laughs as he’s asked the same question. ‘some of us have never touched a drop of alcohol in our lives,’ he joked.
The midfielder has been with danny and nicky since 2014. He was part of the concord Rangers side that was managed by them. He followed them from there to Braintree and to Lincoln last summer. It’s no surprise that his Lincoln team-mates call him the managers’ adopted son. And as you’d expect, the 23-year- old wasn’t going to stray from the family line when asked if there were any illicit celebrations on the way home.
‘no,’ he said. ‘everyone sort of expected us to be talking about it but while everyone else was going mental we were checking the national League scores. We probably cheered louder when the Forest Green Rovers result came through than we did at full-time.’
Both Forest Green and dagenham and Redbridge lost, leaving Lincoln three points clear at the top of the national League with two games in hand.
saturday really couldn’t have gone any better but Woodyard isn’t about to lose his focus.
‘Knowing you’ve got a big game against north Ferriby was enough to bring everyone back down to the ground again,’ he said.
‘It was a brilliant day for everyone though. It was more of a case of enjoying the moment fast before preparing for the game on Tuesday. It was difficult to describe. It’s kind of a blur because you get caught up in the moment. There hasn’t been a chance to sit back and think. We’re such a down to earth group of lads that we haven’t got too carried away by it all.’
someone who did get carried away at the weekend was Burnley midfielder Joey Barton. Riled by burly Lincoln striker Matt Rhead he lost his composure and was booked with 20 minutes to play.
Woodyard was involved in the incident that led to Barton’s booking. He was clattered just outside the Burnley penalty area by former Liverpool full back Jon Flanagan.
But rather than criticise Barton for his behaviour, which included going down theatrically after pretending he’d been struck by Rhead’s arm, Woodyard appreciated having the chance to play against him.
He said: ‘I think I was just happy to be in the same place as him. It was great to play against him. someone at the top level of the game. He’s a similar character to me on the pitch and it was great to test myself against him.’
That’s what they love at Lincoln. Testing themselves. Just like the cowley brothers loved setting tests while working as Pe teachers last year, the players want new ways of showing their working.
Woodyard added: ‘We’re nonLeague footballers. We graft every day. The Premier League is crazy. The players are on thousands of pounds a week. It’s a million miles away. A lot of people label us as non-League and we are in the national League but we prepare like a championship club. We knew that if we could stay in the game against Burnley as long as possible we could give ourselves a chance.’
They gave themselves a chance and took it. A game away from a semi-final at Wembley.
But just don’t go looking to give any of them a beer to say well done. They’re not interested.