After taking charge in 2024, Cowley was unable to improve their league position and they ended the season 22nd, with 11 wins from their 46 games.
But last season, they rose to 10th – their first top-half finish since the Covid-affected 2019-20 season – and as well as winning 16 games, they only lost 11, 12 fewer than the previous campaign.
That is the position they currently occupy this season, with a 0-0 draw against Gillingham to start December, following three successive victories.
“This division is so close, everybody can beat everybody. There’s such fine margins between the teams.
“We’ve been consistent for quite a period of time now, which has been good but we’re very respectful, we have probably our toughest game of the season on Saturday and that’s going to test the form the boys are in,” said Cowley, who also won the divisional award in March.
Colchester – who on Thursday recalled defender Frankie Terry from a loan spell with Braintree Town – have kept clean sheets in three of the games in their four-match unbeaten run in the league.
He said: “It’s always much easier to win football matches if you can keep the opponent to zero. It’s something we work really hard on – it’s never just the goalkeeper and back four, it’s always a collective issue.
“It’s always for us can we defend our half really well? If we can’t, can we defend our box really well? If you can do those two things you don’t have to defend your goal as much and what’s been pleasing is the GKs [goalkeepers] haven’t had so much to do.”
The latest monthly award is, in fact, Cowley’s seventh in the English Football League, his career taking him from Lincoln City to Huddersfield Town and Portsmouth before joining Colchester.
“From day one, it brought its challenges and I would put it up there with my biggest successes to navigate through that first half season and keep the club in the division where we found them,” he said.
“Where they were at and what we had to do, they didn’t have more than a goal in them (per game) and we kind of drew our way to safety, didn’t we?”
This season they are working against a background of the owner trying to sell the club, but there is optimism among some fans that a push to try and return to League One for the first time since 2016 may not be out of the question.
“I love the connection we have with the supporters, they see a group of boys that are proud to play for Colchester United and have the club in their hearts and they trust the group to give their all, game in, game out,” said Cowley.
It has been 17 years since he began his managerial career, also in Essex with Concord Rangers, and he added: “It’s been 100 games (at Colchester) – it seems to fly by, my life. As I get older, it seems there’s a fast forward button on me, but I think we’re in the process of building a platform (for success).
“You’ve always got real clarity with Robbie and that allows you to do your job the best you can with the tools you’re provided with and that’s what we’ve tried to do every day. For Nicky and I, it’s been a really enjoyable part of our career.”
