Saturday 18 February 2017 23:09, UK
Lincoln City manager Danny Cowley said his side rekindled the magic of the FA Cup with their stunning 1-0 win against Burnley in the fifth round on Saturday.
The Imps became the first non-league team since Queens Park Rangers in 1914 to progress to the quarter-finals of the competition thanks to Sean Raggett's 89th-minute header at Turf Moor.
Cowley claimed the shock result would help re-ignite the public's love for the world's oldest cup competition after recent suggestions it was no longer a priority for fans.
"Just incredible really, you kind of do not want it to end," he said. "You are on the pitch and to see our supporters - they are Premier League them supporters - and they have had very limited success at this football club over recent years and they deserve this moment.
"I am so pleased for them and to be able to share it with them was great. Our players, I thought, were outstanding. They played for each other, they played for their families and they are rightly sitting on that coach now proud as punch because they deserve all the back slapping that they are no doubt going to get.
"I think we maybe brought some of the magic back, it is a brilliant cup competition, and whoever says that the FA Cup is dead has not lived in Lincoln in the last six to eight weeks, because it has galvanised our football club.
"This football club has had some really tough times, some really hard moments, and this run has brought Lincoln back to the forefronts of people's minds in the city and it has brought them to people's hearts as well."
Cowley also claimed that the financial rewards from Lincoln's victory would act as a "game changer" as far as his club was concerned.
"It has been massive for us and we have loved every minute and it is life changing for us this period, there is no doubt about that," he added. "It is a game changer for the football club in terms of the finance.
"It is a game changer in terms of the profile of our players and our players deserve that. When you are a non-league footballer - a lot of ours have been part-time footballers - you have to really, really fight. And football at the lower levels is not that romantic and it can be tough at times.
"And for them to have this moment in the limelight is so thoroughly deserved and as I said, I could not be prouder of them all."
