On Sunday morning, less than 24 hours after Lincoln City’s FA Cup first-round tie at AFC Wimbledon, manager Danny Cowley will be back on the touchline, this time as assistant coach of Baddow Spartak U10 girls.

“I’m assistant coach, I’m not manager, I’m not even assistant manager! I’m a balls, bibs and cones man. It’s great,” says the 39‑year‑old, who masterminded Lincoln’s extraordinary run to an FA Cup quarter‑final against Arsenal last season.

It is watching his daughter, Isabella, on a Sunday morning that gives Cowley a rare moment to step away from the whirlwind of full-time management, that he says sees him hardly ever have a day off, although his job at Lincoln is very much a family affair.

This week was a case in point. On Tuesday, having spent all day at their Sincil Bank stadium, Cowley watched their FA Youth Cup match and arrived back at his home in Essex at 3am on Wednesday.

By 7.45am he was at Isabella’s cross-country running before watching video of Saturday’s opponents and completing some recruitment work. In the evening, he was at Baddow Spartak’s training and then in the car by 4.30am on Thursday, heading back to Lincolnshire for their own match preparations, aided by his assistant manager and brother, Nicky. His parents have barely missed a game in 11 years and will watch from the stands on Saturday.

“When you’re involved with professional sport, sometimes the fun element can go away from it,” says Cowley, who also has a house in Lincoln. “It’s lovely to be able to remind yourself of how great the game is and there’s nothing better than surrounding yourself with children. Their enthusiasm and zest for life is infectious.”

Cowley loves winning and learning. He had to quit working as a PE teacher at the FitzWimarc School in Rayleigh, Essex, after taking the Lincoln job but admits he misses the classroom and would not be scared to go back to it. He mixed the role while at Concord Rangers, where he started management – winning three promotions and six trophies in eight years.

Cowley left Concord for National League side Braintree Town in 2015, guiding the part-timers into the play‑offs. The following season Lincoln came calling and Cowley’s biggest challenge began.

The Imps exceeded expectations by winning the National League title in April and becoming the first non-league side since 1914 to reach the FA Cup quarter‑finals, beating Oldham Athletic, of League One, the Championship sides Ipswich Town and Brighton & Hove Albion and then top-flight Burnley on their own patch.

The Cup run brought in money in the region of £2m and now those funds must be spent wisely. “We’re a club in transition,” says Cowley. “We’re trying to make that step from non-league to Football League. There’s a lot of work behind the scenes trying to bring the business side of the club in line with the football department. We’re trying to be competitive while getting better.

“What was really important for Nicky and I is that we used the money to create a legacy off the Cup run. It is about trying to have sustained success and investing the money back into the club and structure.

“You look at other clubs who have had Cup runs like we did and the money has come in and gone into the budget and then the money ends up frittered away. We don’t want that.

“We’ve only got 19 players, 15 of our own and four loan players. We’ve probably got the smallest squad in the Football League. We don’t like to work with big numbers.

“We’re in the process of buying our own training ground which will be a massive step in the right direction for our club. That will give us the facilities to give us the provision to keep developing our own players.

“The reality is that we train at a school for a couple days and at the army barracks on the others. We spend most of our time in other people’s gardens, in stinging nettles, getting our footballs back. That’s where we’re at. We want to give ourselves the best chance of sustained success.”

Lincoln are three points off the play-offs in League Two, six from automatic promotion and have conceded 14 goals, the second fewest in the division. Cowley’s team have struggled to score, though, with 16 goals in as many games but he is adamant they will come. “Whenever you get a promotion, the hardest thing to do is find goals,” he says despite the fact that he re-signed last season’s top scorer Matt Rhead and added Ollie Palmer and Matt Green. “Last year we scored 109 goals, this year we’ve been short of them. That has been as much the quality of the opposition that we’ve played against so far – but we have belief in our forwards.

“If you can sign players with a winning mentality that’s really important. One of the key parts of it is to sign the right characters, I almost look for personality before performance. Make sure that they have the mindset that fits our dressing room. I always think if you can get like-minded people then you go a long way to sustainable success.”

A problem Cowley now faces – and it is a nice one – is living up to the standards his history-making team set which have drawn in League Two’s highest average crowds.

“We’ve gone from 2,500 supporters to having over 6,000 season-ticket holders. Our supporters, in the short term, have only known success. There is a level of expectation that needs to be managed. A lot of our fans are intelligent enough to know that we’re on a pathway, a journey. We’re making good progress and we’re going to keep learning fast.”

Almost eight months on from that quarter-final night at the Emirates Stadium, on Saturday Lincoln are back in the competition against AFC Wimbledon, who play in the division above them. “For us to go back into the FA Cup off last year’s experience is just brilliant. It’s a real challenge for us because we always aim to be better than what we’ve done before which means we have to get to the semi-finals.

“It proved last year that anything is possible. If you’re willing to work really hard and be selfless and put the team first, then anything is possible. We’re looking forward to being reacquainted with the greatest cup competition in the world. After playing against the likes of [Mesut] Özil and [Alexis] Sánchez we’ll never walk on the football pitch fearing anyone again.”