At Boston United's centre for excellence he coached Tom Hopper, who became the club's youngest ever player aged 15 and would go on to secure a move to Leicester City. As Ilkeston’s academy manager, Reece Dolan, Dan Udoh and Lewis Walker transferred to Barnsley, Crewe and Derby County, respectively, after spending time under his tutelage. And earlier this year, Jordan Cropper was snapped up from that same academy on a scholarship with Burnley.

While he did not single handily orchestrate each move, new Long Eaton United gaffer Steve Welsh was instrumental in each player's development. The 49-year-old Scotsman has established a solid reputation for working with youth teams and joins the Blues as it prepares to launch a new season with a new setup.

Alongside assistant manager Shaun 'Bullett' Rickford and head of football development Paul Holland, the managerial trio will focus on youth, creating a pipeline of talented players from the highly successful development squad and the newly created academy into the first team.

And the former professional – who turned out for Partick Thistle and Peterborough United – has had a long affinity with youth development, having started his coaching badges in his late 20s. Aged 35, Welsh became Lincoln City’s football in the community officer when he hung up his playing boots and moved to Boston United afterwards, spending a decade at their centre of excellence. From there Welsh spent two years at Ilkeston, nurturing some of the aforementioned players’ talent.

“It’s nice to see guys come in, you light a fire in their belly and they’re then able to come up and go on,” says Welsh. “That’s my background, working and developing younger players into first teams, bridging that gap.”

After joining the armed forces aged 16, and serving for six years, Welsh launched his professional career aged 22, turning out for Cambridge United, Peterborough United, Preston, Partick Thistle, Dunfermline Athletic, Ayre United, Lincoln City and King’s Lynn.

Some of the career highlights, so Steve says, are a Wembley play-off final with Peterborough United in 1992, a Scottish Cup semi-final with Ayr United in 1999 and a successful relegation battle with Partick Thistle in 1995, stealing four points from a final three games of Celtic, Falkirk and Rangers.

Reminiscing online, one Partick Thistle fan labelled Welsh’s match against FC Metz in the Intertoto Cup as ‘surely the highlight of his career’, but the Scotsman looks back at that game rather differently. “It was probably the biggest beating of my professional career,” says Welsh, who played against a 21-year-old French winger by the name of Robert Pirès in the now defunct competition.

“We got beat 1-0 but how we got beat 1-0 is beyond me. I never forget it was pre-season game, 80 degrees in this industrial town north west of France – and in the following year Metz went on to win the French league, so they were a right good side. They just ran us ragged. I think our goalkeeper was like Gordon Banks and Peter Shilton and everyone wrapped into one, he had a great game Nicky Walker did. The Intertoto Cup was a great experience, we played NK Zagreb, Keflavík from Iceland and ASK Linz from Austria and FC Metz in the group.”

From his playing days to his managerial reign at United, Welsh is hoping to use his collective experience to push on and lead the club in this landmark season.

To ensure that youth are properly integrated into the first team fold, Welsh has already made one commitment. In every squad the Scotsman says that two places will be up for grabs for academy and development squad players, meaning there are just 14 spots for first team players each week.

“We’ll be a mixture of experience and youth and hopefully we’ll be alright,” he adds. “I come from a youth development background so I encourage players to express themselves and play. You also need to have players who can roll their sleeves up and go to the back end of Birmingham and dig a draw out on a Tuesday night when things are going against you, you need plenty of character. We hope to have the older players in the first team really committed to this vision and to be good to help develop the young players but at the same token the young players have got to step up. The great thing with youth is that they go in with a real enthusiasm about it and if you’ve got that and you can channel that then they will run through brick walls for you.”

And one of those figures is long serving player and assistant manager Bullett. “Bullett wants to win, it’s as simple as that, he wants to win at all costs and some of our young players need to learn that and I think he will be perfect for us. He’s looked really sharp in training and I think he can be a real leader for us on the pitch. I hear him in the training ground now saying things like ‘I don’t want you to accept being second best, be the best’ and that’s what I’m trying to get across.”

Looking to the season ahead, Steve has it very clear in his mind what will be classed as a successful year.

“When the board approached me here, they sold me the model and the vision for the club. What would be a successful season for me, considering it’s the first year with the academy, is that we can demonstrate a pathway from the academy and development squad into the first team and sustain at a good standard. I’m not going to say we’re going to win the league but I want our first team to be young and competitive. That’s my first thing. Once we’ve got that then we can talk about winning the leagues. We cannot achieve everything overnight. Ideally the football club wants to be in a completely different place to where it is now in three years’ time.”