Which was the highlight of your career, winning the FA Trophy or playing an FA Cup semi-final for Wycombe against Liverpool?
The FA Trophy final, because we won it and it was at Wembley. The semi-final was a good experience but we lost the game and there wren’t too many celebrations in the changing room. The Trophy had a good feel leading up to it; there wasn’t a great deal of pressure on us because we weren’t expected to beat Torquay, and when we won it was just great. Going up to lift the Trophy was an incredible feeling. I’m glad they kept the steps there, it’s part of the history of Wembley, isn’t it?

There are a lot more steps than there used to be…
There are! About a hundred odd. When we went to look around the place a few weeks before, we walked up the steps and I thought crikey! I won’t be able to get up these. If I’d been walking up as a losing player I might have struggled but when you’ve won you can’t wait to get up there.

What’s your abiding memory of the day?
How relaxed I was. I think the gaffer dealt with the day perfectly. He wanted it to be a family occasion. Of course, he knew perfectly the importance of the players keeping their concentration, but the fact that the families came to the hotel in the morning, I think that helped to relax everyone. He just wanted everyone to enjoy the day out and it couldn’t have gone any better. Not only did we win but my family were there, my friends, two of my daughters were mascots, loads of people were over from Ireland and everybody had a good day.

Was the semi-final second leg at Aldershot the real nail-biting part then?
Well, we had every confidence in ourselves, even though they were the runaway leaders in the league. We still fancied ourselves over two legs to go and beat anyone.

What are your memories of playing Liverpool? Who were you marking?
They started with Michael Owen and Robbie Fowler up front…

No problem.
…yeah, and then Emile Heskey came on. We were doing all right and then they went 1-0 up in the 79th minute. And then Fowler scored after that. It was one of those games where if they’d scored early they’d have battered us, but the longer the game went on you could see that the nerves were starting to show on their side. But then Gerrard came off the bench after about an hour and he lifted the tempo of their game. They were a great side, I think they won three cups that year.

What is the X factor that these top-flight players have?
Obviously ability is one thing. Gerrard’s speed of movement and speed of thought was different to the other Liverpool players. He was that bit sharper, that bit more clinical. Everything he did was done quickly and with precision. But there are a lot of players in the top division that aren’t exceptional and I think there are players in the lower leagues who can go and play there.

What does it take to get an unexceptional player into the Premiership?
I think being an athlete is a big advantage: pace and power. You look at the amount of African players here, they’re so quick and so strong. Obviously they’ve got to be good players but being an athlete is important. Take big John [Akinde], who’s gone to Bristol now; I love John to bits but if you’re talking about movement and awareness of the game, I’d put Luke [Moore] ahead of him. But John’s big, strong, powerful and he’s got a level head. To play for the top four clubs, you’ve got to have all those assets. You look at Cristiano Ronaldo: players think they’re going to go out and kick him, but then they line up against him in the tunnel and realise he’s six foot two and built like a brick s***house.

Who were the senior players you looked up to when you were younger?
I was lucky, I started at Brighton and Alan Curbishley was there at the time. Then over the years we had Steve Foster, Steve Gatting. I’ve had managers like Liam Brady, Jimmy Case. Frank Stapleton came down for a while to play for us. There were a lot of experienced players. Jerry Armstrong.

So now you’re in their position, what do you look to pass on to the youngsters at Ebbsfleet?
I wish I had the head that I’ve got now fifteen years ago. I think hard work and honesty will get you a long way. What a manager sees in a player is their reaction to success or failure. We’re lucky, we’ve got young lads who don’t mind rolling their sleeves up. When things are going well they don’t get chirpy and above themselves, when things aren’t going so well, they get their heads down, take the bollockings and getting on with it. Which makes my job easier as an older player.

What made you take up coaching with the youth team?
It was something I was interested in and something I enjoy. Ian Docker is a good coach and I learn a lot from him. It’s special seeing the end product and playing with players who come though: John, Luke, Kwesi. Take the Woking game, when Kwesi came off the bench and scored with his first touch: it makes it all the more special because it’s one of our lads coming through and showing everybody what he can do.

Do you feel the presence of Premiership clubs snapping up talent in the area?
There are so many clubs in the area that the very best players will be taken, but there are others that don’t develop till later on and there are so many players at these academies that they can’t take everybody on. So we have trials and we invite people along who have been released and we give them the opportunity to come and train full-time. The first thing we look for is attitude. They need the hunger to succeed. You can have all the talent in the world but if you don’t want to do it you’ve got no chance.

Why don’t English players have the technical ability of the Continentals?
Maybe they get it knocked out of them. Maybe it’s competitive too early. I’m not involved with any of the under-10s, 9s etc, but I know with rugby, they don’t play full rugby straight away, they start with tag and every year there’s another stepping stone towards playing full contact. Maybe in football they need to make the kids’ leagues less competitive, because if you’ve got managers who just want to win the league and so pick their more physically developed players, someone who’s small and technically very good might not get a game.

Any promising players we can look forward to seeing come into the first team this season?
We’re quite confident that there’ll be a few coming in at the end of this season. Last year we didn’t have the best group of second years, so that encouraged us to bring a lot of the first year lads in. Now they’re another year older, our PASE side is made up mainly of second years, which hasn’t happened for a while. So we’ve got a strong squad and there are quite a few of them who have got a chance.

What’s the objective for the season?
Our main objective is to develop players for the first team. Results are important for players’ confidence but we don’t want to have games that we win 8-0, which happens quite a lot in our league. We want games where players are testing us, as a character and as a player.

John Akinde scored last night on his debut for Bristol City.
Yeah, brilliant.

Having been sold to Wycombe for £100,000, tell us what’s it like having a price tag on your head like he did?
A hundred grand back then was a lot of money and it was a lot for Wycombe to spend. And I was signed by a manager there, Alan Smith, who wasn’t popular at the club – though I liked him a lot. So I found it difficult. I was 24 and I was expected to play straight away, whereas John has gone to a club where the manager is exceptional with young players and is known as a great coach. He won’t throw a player in in his first week without giving him a chance to settle in. But I was so pleased for him last night. Especially cos they equalised later on, so the atmosphere in the changing room would have been more befitting a game where somebody’s made his debut and scored.

Sum up your feelings when you first heard about the MyFC takeover and how you feel about it now.
I was quite positive about it because I realised that the club couldn’t continue full-time. We’d been doing really well but the local support wasn’t really getting behind us. To be competitive in this league you need more people coming through the gate, you need more finance and more businesses involved, and we weren’t really getting that at the time. It was frustrating for us as players and I imagine it was worse for the people who were running the club and especially the gaffer. He was putting out a side that was punching well above its weight and people weren’t coming to see us. So my feeling was, as long as you’re playing well and working hard, you’ve got a chance of playing in the first team – just like a normal club really. I think it’s gone really well. I’ve noticed a difference, particularly away from home. At Barrow our support was ten times what I expected it to be in that part of the world. As a player that’s good to see.

What would you like to see members focus on?
I think they can make a difference in lots of ways. For the club to develop the support is the main thing for me: people coming to support and the general interest. It keeps the club’s name in the spotlight. The gates are up this year; we’re averaging about 500 more each game than last year, which is a terrific amount of people. From a player’s point of view, it just helps when they’re there supporting us.

What do you do outside football?
I’ve got four daughters, so after the training and the coaching, I get my taxi driver’s hat on in the evening and drop the kids here there and everywhere.

How old are they?
12, 10, 8 and 6.

That’s well planned.
Yeah, I thought I’d give her a year off…

Do they come and watch you?
Not really because they’ve all got their own activities. As people out there with kids will understand, as soon as they get to a certain age you’re life’s over, mate, because you’re dictated by them.

You’re 52 now, do you have ambitions to be a manager?
Ha ha! Yeah, 52 last week. I’m enjoying playing at the moment and coaching. There are times when you think it would be good to manage, but then there are times when you see the gaffer’s face every morning, miserable as sin, and you think Christ! It can’t be that much fun. To be fair to him he deals with it really well. He’s a good judge of character in that he doesn’t bring in people who would rock the boat. Personally, I’d like to stay involved in football at some level, it depends what turns up. But it’s not an easy game to stay in. We’ll just have to see.