We are creatures of the KNIGHT
COWLEYS’ GURU IS RUGBY WORLD CUP WINNER SIR CLIVE WOODWARD.. WHO POPPED IN FOR A BREAKFAST PEP TALK AHEAD OF BIGGEST DAY OF THEIR LIVES
ASSEMBLED around the breakfast table, the kitchen cabinet formulated their plans for a seismic FA Cup upset.
Brothers Danny and Nicky Cowley, the family firm who have plotted non-League Lincoln City’s astonishing run to the quarter-finals, picked the brains of England rugby World Cup-winning coach Sir Clive Woodward.
Occasionally, one of them would quote a passage verbatim from Woodward’s autobiography and Sir Clive, suitably flattered, pondered: “So you really have read my books.”
And at the other end of the table, Danny’s seven-year-old daughter Isabella, hovering behind a laptop screen, applied herself to homework like never before to impress the visitor who had come round for a Sunday morning brainstorm in Essex.
At sunset this evening, if Arsenal’s season suffers its most grievous humiliation of all, British sport’s latest sibling double act could be writing Arsene Wenger’s epitaph as Gunners manager at the Emirates. The Brothers Grim, indeed.
Tennis gave us Andy and Jamie Murray, No.1 in their singles and doubles world rankings; in triathlon, Alistair and Jonny Brownlee have become national treasures; in rugby league, the Burgess boys are attempting to privatise an entire code under a single family name. And now Lincoln City, who dumped out Burnley, Brighton, Ipswich and Oldham on the road to Wembley, have the Cowleys and their VIP connections. They and Woodward formed a mutual admiration society on the BBC Radio airwaves the morning after Lincoln stormed the Clarets’ Turf Moor fortress, and he fulfilled a promise to meet before they pitch up in north London bearing booby-traps for Wenger. “Sir Clive came round to Danny’s house last Sunday morning – I couldn’t get round there quick enough,” said Imps assistant boss Nicky. “Danny rang and said, ‘He’s here’. I knew who he meant and I was there like a shot. You have to walk past his kitchen window to get to the front door, and when I peered in there was Sir Clive Woodward, England’s rugby World Cup-winning coach, having a cup of coffee with my brother. How cool is that?
“We’ve read his books and are happy to borrow a lot of ideas from what he did with England’s rugby team and the business side of sport. It was a real treat to meet him.”
Manager Danny added: “He’s going to come back and do an audit of the whole football department and that will be invaluable for us. Whatever division we’re operating in next season, you always want to do things better.”
More to the point, wherever the brothers are operating next season, they come as a package. The Firm.
It was even that way when they worked as PE teachers at the same school, FitzWimarc secondary in Rayleigh, Essex. Danny, 38, said: “Our wages are different, but we pool them so we get half each – because every decision is a joint decision and our unity is our strength. I’d only be half as good if I was working on my own, so it’s a relationship that works for us.
“We have trust and loyalty, which are hard things to find in football, and we know each other inside out.
“The last time we fell out? We don’t really fall out properly – although Nicky did throw a snooker ball at me once. I’d have been about 10, so he was seven.
“Mum and dad had just had a new carpet fitted and we had a big fish tank behind us. I’m a bad loser, but Nicky is a terrible loser.
“After I potted the black, he picked the ball up and threw it at me, I ducked and it went right through the fish tank. Dad only found out what had really happened about a year ago.
“As adults, we’re both singleminded and strongly opinionated, and we never agree with each other for the sake of it. But all we talk about is football.”
From dawn to dusk, that is no exaggeration, as Nicky confirmed with one snapshot from the Big Brother household: “When I got up at 6.30 this morning, in the house we share in Lincoln when we stay over, Danny came downstairs and didn’t even say ‘Good morning’. His first words were, ‘I’ve worked Arsenal out. I’ve got this great idea’.
“I’m pretty used to cutting out the small-talk and getting straight down to football.”
So here is the bottom line for Wenger if the Cowleys preside over an unimaginable giantkilling tonight. What’s the square route of P45? Ask Sir Clive – he has probably worked it out already.