Danny and Nicky Cowley aiming to lead Colchester to survival

Nearly five years after departing Sincil Bank, the Cowleys' words still hold much weight with the Imps, who surged from the National League to League One in the space of three seasons under their management.

The brothers guided Lincoln to their first-ever game at Wembley and reached the FA Cup quarter-finals in 2017, marking the longest run for a non-league club in the competition for more than a century.

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Steve Freestone, the Red Imps Community Trust secretary, shared his perspective of the Cowleys' tenure at Lincoln and the legacy that they left behind.

"One of their tag lines during their time at Lincoln was, ‘impossible is just an opinion’, and for what they did, they are, on paper, the most successful Lincoln City managers that we’ve ever had," he said.

“If you talk to anyone around Lincoln, the love of those two is something that remains, because where Lincoln are now is down to them.”

Danny and Nicky arrived at Lincoln in 2016 and took over a side that had been rooted in the National League for half a decade, with five successive finishes in the division’s bottom half.

Following the Cowleys' arrival, Freestone sensed that the atmosphere quickly changed.

“All of a sudden, we had managers that had success at Braintree, that got into the play-offs," he said.

"I think the expectation that season was ‘let’s have a go at the play-offs’ - the whole atmosphere changed [with backing from their chairman, Clive Nates].

"I think the way they saw it was that the club wasn’t just about the players, the board and the directors, it was the fanbase as well and people believed them.

"There wasn’t particularly any end money, but they were prepared to work, and we saw that in the players.”

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In the space of a year, Lincoln retuned to the EFL, but had also gone on a remarkable FA Cup run, reaching the quarter-finals after notably defeating Ipswich Town and Premier League side Burnley, along the way.

For Freestone, this cup run made an indelible difference to the club.

He said: “Lincoln didn’t really have a training camp before the Cowleys came in, and one of the things they addressed was that you can’t get the best out of the players if they don’t have proper training facilities.

“That was built and paid for by the funds that were raised through the FA Cup run.

"When Lincoln were relegated, they had no money, they were literally living hand to mouth. If there was a bit of grass somewhere, they would use it to train on.

"You’re not going to get the better players to come in that way, if they haven’t got anywhere where they can train, relax, and use a gym - all of that was built through the Cowleys' legacy.”

A matter of months after guiding the Imps to League One in 2019, the Cowleys departed for Huddersfield Town.

Just under five years later, with a stint at Portsmouth in between, the U’s finally earned their signature.

Though Freestone has little doubt that Colchester’s fortunes will change under Danny and Nicky’s stewardship, he believes that the fans and board must ‘stand with’ them.

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He said: “I would say, certainly at Lincoln, they had a summer to work with the players, they didn’t get that when they joined Huddersfield and Portsmouth.

“I think the difficulty is that they’ve not had a summer behind them to get the team together, but they need it.

"You’ve just got to stand with them and support them through these next few months. When they can get their own players in, I think there is cause for cautious optimism.

“If they get the time to build a team and to get them playing in their own image, then you get wins. It may not be particularly pretty, but you won’t be fourth from bottom this time next year.”