Our boys used to fight with each other... but together at Lincoln City they can beat anybody
Cowley brothers are dream team
THEY scrapped as kids, but brotherly love has made Nicky and Danny Cowley the dream team that will take Lincoln City to a historic FA Cup clash with Arsenal today.
With Danny, 38, as manager and Nicky, 35, his assistant, Lincoln City are the first non-league side in 103 years to reach the quarter finals of the FA Cup.
Parents Steve and Gill insist it is the fraternal bond that makes them a force to be reckoned with.
Steve, 65, says: “They’ve got real loyalty and they trust one another totally. That’s difficult to achieve if you’re working with someone you’re not that close to.
“Their partnership isn’t just a work arrangement, it’s a life arrangement. Even if after this the really big clubs came calling, they wouldn’t split up. Like candlesticks, they come as a pair.
“And I think they realise that their strength is that you get two managers in one. They know that, together, they’re also greater than the sum of their parts.”
But Gill, 64, says her sons were not always sweetness and light growing up in Chelmsford, Essex.
She says: “One day, they were playing snooker in the living room and I heard this almighty bang and yelling, so I raced in to find the fish tank smashed, water pouring out on to my new carpet and the fish flapping on the floor.
“Initially, the boys said the ball had just slipped off the cue and flew off the table, but it turned out that Nicky had thrown it at Danny because he’d beaten him. Except it missed Danny and hit the tank.”
The brothers’ hopes of being professional footballers were dashed in their mid teens when they both developed an agonising condition in their legs, OsgoodSchlatter disease, which forced them to stop playing for a year.
Instead, they both went to university and became PE teachers. Danny managed local teams in Essex, then in 2016 joined Lincoln City, where his brother joined him as assistant.
Danny has two children, Isabella, seven, and George, three, with wife Kate, 39. Nicky is married to Lauren, 32, and they have a son Harry, six, and daughter Betsy, two.
Their families will be cheering them on as Lincoln City take on Arsene Wenger’s side at the 60,000-seat Emirates Stadium, after beating Burnley, Brighton, Ipswich and Oldham.
Sadly, their last living grandparent, Louisa, 90, cannot be there as she is bed-ridden. But Steve says: “There was something about the boys in the paper and when I showed her that, her face just lit up. It was a lovely moment.”
Even if Lincoln lose, their dad is convinced today won’t be the end of his sons’ story. He says: “I think the bigger days are still to come.”