Lincoln’s secret weapon? The manager’s father
As at all of their games, Steve Cowley will send tactical notes to his sons from the Emirates stands
Long after Aldershot’s home match against Lincoln City has finished, a middleaged couple remain in the Recreation Ground’s main stand. As a steward wearily brushes the remains of the game down the steps, the man – tall, silver-haired, bespectacled – is tapping away assiduously at his phone.
But Steve Cowley is not venting his frustration at the goalless draw on Twitter, or sending Instagram pictures to his wife, Gill, stood in the queue for the refreshment van. Rather he is sending a post-match report to the Lincoln management team, who happen to be his sons, Danny and Nicky.
Which is something he has done at every game they have managed since they first ventured into the technical area with the Essex non-League side Concord Rangers, eight years ago. “I do it electronically,” says Steve. “I used to write notes on paper, but it’s all email now. They’re laptop lads.”
He has been in the stand tapping at his phone at every Lincoln game this season bar one, sending emails just before half-time and again after the final whistle, observations such as “We’re pushing up too far” or “We could put more pressure on their left-back”.
“It’s another pair of eyes for them,” the retired local government officer explains. “I’ll try to sit up in the stands as high up as I can, which offers a different view. Because they’re right down there at pitch level, sometimes you see a different game. I give them little things. Not so much tactical, just little things I think they might not have seen.” He pauses for a moment before smiling. “Though they usually have.”
Football and the Cowleys have been resolutely connected almost since the day the boys were born. When they were toddlers, Gill used to take them to watch their father play for the Port of London Authority team. As they grew older, Steve was their junior team coach, once taking a local Essex League under-11 side with Danny in it to London Colney, where they beat Arsenal’s under-11s 6-0.
As a reciprocation for such support, the boys once bought their mother a copy of the for Christmas. And she was delighted. Now the two brothers are flying at Lincoln, taking the team to the top of the National League and becoming the first non-League side in over a century to reach the quarter-finals of the FA Cup, their parents have been there watching every step of the way.
“When Steve said, ‘Now you’ve gone to Lincoln do you want me to stop doing it?’, Danny said, ‘No, why?’ ” says Gill of her husband’s scouting reports.
“Yeah,” chips in Steve. “They had become professional managers, and I thought maybe they might be a bit embarrassed, their old dad telling them stuff. They might not want anyone to find out about it.”
“But no,” continues Gill, “Danny said he didn’t want to stop anything that had helped them on the way. So Steve does it at every game.”
This, Steve says, is typical of the boys’ methodology: If something works, why change it?
Yet for Steve and Gill, watching every moment of every game with the closest of attention, this season has been one of mind-boggling over-achievement – one which will reach its apex when they head to Arsenal for the Cup quarter-final.
“I’ve never been to the Emirates,” Steve says. “I went to the old Highbury, to watch the Hammers. We’re a family of West Ham fans going right back. My grandfather went to the first Cup final at Wembley in 1923. He climbed over the wall and got in for free.”
There will be none of that on Saturday. Instead the couple will be in the pricey seats high in the stands. Up there, phone in hand, Steve will be dispatching notes to his sons.
He hopes he might even notice the one thing that could unlock the Arsenal defence. “Mind, if I ever have seen anything they hadn’t, they would never admit it,” he roars with laughter. “Crikey, no.”