Braintree Town chairman Lee Harding says he sees no reason to draw out the process of appointing the Iron's new manager.

The club are on the hunt for a new boss after the departure at the end of last week of Danny Cowley to Braintree's Vanarama National League rivals Lincoln City.

The lure of being a full-time manager at the Imps proved too much for Cowley, who juggled his part-time position at Braintree with working as a PE teacher, to turn down.

And his move instigated a second managerial hunt in just over 12 months for Braintree.

Harding doesn't expect it to be a protracted search this time and said the calibre of applicants had been high again, but he said whoever comes in will have to buy into the club's ethos.

The Iron board resolutely stick to only spending what they can afford and the chairman was glad that those putting their names forward had been willing to follow that line.

Harding said: "We've had lots of interest in the job and we've been in the process of sorting out the wheat from the proverbial chaff, but things have been settling down and we've been drawing up a short list.

"We don't feel we need to hang about and we are in a position where we can move quite quickly.

"We've had some very able applicants already and over the next day or two we'll be talking to some of them, but we have a clear indication of what we are looking for.

"It will have to be someone who is looking to buy into the Braintree way of doing things.

"You only have to look at the advert that we placed to see that we want someone keen to play football at a higher level, but at the same time, we want to be here next season so the club won't be spending money that isn't sustainable.

"We have our feet on the ground and we feel we can be competitive with what we have.

"There will be more money available as we had the play-offs and got money from that which will allow us to strengthen.

"Some will go towards the team and some will be invested in the pitch, which we believe is good news.

"They are small steps but ones that show we are growing.

"We've had some good applications with a mix of people.

"We have had some who have been working in the Football League, some who have been working in our own division and the one immediately below, a couple from people who have managed internationally and also the usual ones who have had some success playing Football Manager in the computer.

"There have been some who contacted us about the post before, because it was only 12 months ago that we were going through this process.

"We didn't do too badly in getting Dan and Nick (Cowley) in and we're now in the process of trying to repeat that."