Braintree Town are wasting no time as they look to replace outgoing manager Danny Cowley.

Cowley, who led the Iron to the National League play-offs in his first season at the club, stepped down on Thursday night following talks with Lincoln City, and was set to be announced as the new Imps boss at a fans’ forum event last night.

Braintree chairman Lee Harding has already been inundated with applications to become Cowley’s replacement and is hopeful of making an appointment as early as next week.

“We’re now very focused on looking forward and the process of getting ourselves another manager,” he said.

“Danny resigning on Thursday wasn’t a complete surprise to us, we knew it was coming, and we wish him well because he has done an excellent job for us.

“As things stand we have advertised for the role and have already had a number of applicants in. We’ll start the process of drawing up a shortlist over the weekend, maybe interview some people at the start of next week and then hopefully make an appointment fairly quickly.

“We’ve been inundated with applicants already, as we expected, and it’s now down to us to pick the best for us.

Applicants range from coaches with Football League experience to those with a CV made up of notable achievements on football-based computer games.

While Harding joked he has no problem with receiving the more light-hearted applications, the Iron chairman did insist he is open to appointing either a full or part-time manager.

“We’ve had a wide range of applicants from those already working for clubs in the Football League to the young lads who have been successful on Fifa or on Championship manager,” he said.

“I’ve got no problem with those applications either because if you don’t ask, you don’t get. It’s all part and parcel of the fun of it really.

“We’ll have some very able applicants to choose from I’m sure.

“Some will want it full-time, others will want to do it around a day job, and we’ll look at all of them.

“For Danny it was part-time but for Alan Devonshire it was pretty much a full-time job, so it can work well whichever way you do it.”

“We don’t want to hang about, we have pre-season starting on the 25th of June and then the season starts on August 6.”

Whoever replaces Cowley will also have greater flexibility within the playing budget, helped by Braintree’s run to the play-offs.

Harding said: “The windfall from the play-offs will allow us to further improve our playing budget and playing surface over the coming months and I now look forward to selecting the next manager of the club to continue our push towards our ultimate ambition.”

Braintree have already lined up three pre-season friendlies against Football League clubs, starting with a home game against Southend United on Saturday, July 16.

Gillingham visit three days later on July 19, before a final game against Cambridge United on Saturday, June 30.