LINCOLN, England -- If they think hard enough, Danny and Nicky Cowley can just about come up with a time when they exchanged angry words.
"He'd have been about 7, and I'd have been 10," says Danny, the Lincoln City manager, of an incident brought about by his sibling, who is nominally his assistant. "Mum and Dad had just bought a brand new carpet, there was a fish tank behind us, and we were playing pool. I potted the black, and he picked the ball up and threw it at me -- I'm a bad loser but he's a terrible one. But I ducked, and it went right through the fish tank."
Everything the Cowleys have achieved in almost two decades since then has occurred in close unity. Football has few comparable partnerships; a year ago, the brothers were still teaching PE full-time at FitzWimarc School, in Essex, while leading unfashionable Braintree Town to the playoffs in England's fifth tier. On Saturday they take Lincoln, a sleeping giant in nonleague terms, and one they have led to the brink of promotion from the National League in their first season, to the Emirates Stadium where Arsenal will present the test of a lifetime.
Until Sean Raggett headed a dramatic winner against Burnley three weeks ago, no nonleague side had reached the FA Cup quarterfinals in 103 years. Lincoln's success has turned their management duo into household names; it has also helped a club that was previously on its knees regenerate more quickly than anyone could have imagined.
"What we found when we arrived here last summer was a club that had probably been in mourning," Danny says.
"It had been relegated five years ago, and it was still suffering off the back of that. The first thing we did was spend three weeks doing an audit: studying the club, speaking to everybody from the tea lady all the way up to the chairman. We just wanted to come in and bring an enthusiasm, a work ethic and a direction. That's what we've tried to do, and thankfully people have bought into it.
"What makes a football club is not the bricks and mortar -- it's the people, and it's been a pleasure to come in every day and work with them. We've got some fantastic colleagues, and the players have been brilliant."
It's hard to think of a club whose entire outlook has been changed so dramatically by two new arrivals; all the more so given their backgrounds. Lincoln's players joke that Danny's car can be seen in the car park daily between 7 a.m. and 10 p.m. -- except the truth that lies behind the laughs is inescapable. One of the club's canteen workers frets that Danny, so consumed in the run up to Arsenal, is not eating properly.
The pair, who share a house together during the week and also split their joint income -- they are, as Danny is keen to point out, effectively co-managers -- are workaholics, but their attention to detail is matched by a warmth and care that has brought the Imps close to their community again.
"They've brought a new beginning to the club, and it's just taken off from there," says Brian Holden, a supporter since the 1960s who has seen "one or two decent managers and one or two not so decent managers" come and go in that time. "The mind boggles at what's happened at the moment. What can you say? They've given a new spirit to Lincoln City; they get involved with the fans, immerse themselves with everything, chat to you when they walk past and are always happy to have their pictures taken with you."
It is a far cry from the days, earlier in this decade, when the club briefly looked in danger of going under. Until the past month, few would have dared to envisage the kind of conversation taking place under the stand at Sincil Bank as fans mix with media two days before the trip to North London.
"Who could we get in the semis?" one asks another. "Who else is still in the cup? [Manchester] United, Chelsea, Spurs ... Millwall?"
The Cowleys have created this intoxicating mixture of fantasy and reality, which permeates every part of the club's community, by combining the best aspects of their backgrounds.
"We worked at a school with 1,300 different personalities, and not all of them liked PE!" Nicky says, and the knock-on effect on their interpersonal skills is remarked upon by those who deal with them daily. In addition there was their spell at tiny Canvey Island-based club Concord Rangers, where Danny managed for eight years, taking them to three promotions and a place in the FA Cup first round in 2014, while Nicky was player-coach.
"There were very few members of staff so you pretty much had to go every single role," Nicky continues. "As a consequence you really value the people that do those jobs when you come to a bigger club as we have now."
There is a link, however tenuous, with Saturday's opponents: the brothers' father, Steve, played football with the Gunners' first-team coach, Neil Banfield, who has always been available for a chat. He helped them take promising goalkeeper Josh Vickers (these days impressing on loan at Barnet from Swansea) on loan at Concord two seasons ago, and there will be warm greetings when they meet at the Emirates. These are uncertain times at Arsenal, but the prospect of sharing a postmatch drink with Arsène Wenger is a happy one, and while they genuinely believe they can win the game, the Lincoln management duo have no wish to stick the knife in.
"Regardless of the result, it'd be great if he did spend some time with us after. I'm sure that would be a valuable experience," Nicky says. "What's good about football management is that nearly all managers understand that what happens on the pitch is just for that period, and afterwards, socially, you all realise you're in similar jobs and want to help each other, just as much as you want to beat each other during the game."
It is this brightness and optimism that endears you to the Cowleys, who talk over each other constantly in the way that only brothers with a knack of finishing each other's sentences can. They tell the tale of how Clive Woodward, the 2003 Rugby World Cup-winning coach with England, accepted an invite to Danny's family home for morning tea last Sunday. Nicky's eyes almost popped out of his head as he walked past the kitchen window and saw the pair discussing management techniques. Woodward has promised to visit Sincil Bank when the season is over to run his eye over the Cowleys' setup.
"That would be invaluable for us," Danny says. "You always want to do things better, don't you?"
For the 9,000 Lincoln supporters who will converge upon North London on Saturday, any improvement on the present would barely be conceivable. "We have a great understanding in the sense that we almost know what each other's thinking," Nicky says. "We both know the type of environment we want to create for our players, and we put a hell of a lot of work into providing that platform for them to go and be at their best."
And if the Lincoln players respond as they have so far in this cup run, then maybe, just maybe, the Cowleys will be able to put that unfortunate incident with the fish tank even further behind them.
