Bygones: Looking at how a Blade in Owls clothing proved to be the Jamie Vardy of his day

But 20 years ago it was another footballing son from the Steel City whose goals put Sheffield Wednesday at the summit of English football.

Eighteen-year-old Ritchie Humphreys burst onto the scene at Hillsborough with three goals in Wednesday’s opening four games in 1996 to leave them top with a maximum haul of 12 points.

He netted against Aston Villa, Leeds United and Leicester City – the latter one of the iconic goals in Premier League history – to become one of the hottest properties in English football.

Sadly, Humphreys and Wednesday were unable to sustain that early promise’

The Owls went on to finish seventh, just missing out on Europe, while Humphreys left S6 in 2001 for Hartlepool United to ply his trade in the lower leagues, and the 38-year-old is still pulling on his boots in League One today with Chesterfield.

“I thought it was great, and I can imagine how the guys at Leicester City are feeling now, it must be unbelievable,” Humphreys told The Yorkshire Post.

“At the time, I didn’t know any different. The previous season they had not finished too far off the bottom, David Pleat was in his second season.

“We won on the first day at Villa, where I scored, then went to Leeds on the Tuesday night and won a local derby. Andy Booth and I scored.

“Then we went up to Newcastle, that was when Alan Shearer had signed, and we went 1-0 behind to a Shearer penalty. Peter Atherton replied from a wide free-kick, and Guy Whittingham scored.

“To win at St James’, I do remember thinking not many teams will come here and win because they nearly won the league title the season before.

“Then we played Leicester City on Sky, when I scored with that chip, and we had won four out of four.

“To think back now we were top of the Premier League and I was part of that, it’s brilliant. We just missed out on Europe in the last couple of games.

“It was a great start for me and I think I learned a lot in those early years.”

From a generation boasting the likes of Michael Owen and Rio Ferdinand, Humphreys could be forgiven for being a little bitter that his Premier League dreams fizzled away.

Instead, he believes he was lucky to have had such a footballing education at Hillsborough, which would serve him well during the next two decades as a professional footballer.

“It was a good experience for me, and a lesson that it wouldn’t always stay like that,” he said.

“When I dropped down a few divisions, I couldn’t sustain playing at that level, and that’s why I ended up leaving Sheffield Wednesday.

“People of my age, who I played in the Under-21s with, had amazing careers, people like Rio Ferdinand, Frank Lampard, Michael Owen and Nicky Butt.

“I take my hat off to them, I am not dumbing myself down, but their level of consistency was phenomenal. To play that many games at the top level, was amazing.

“On reflection, I played most of my career in League One and Two, so quite clearly – without putting myself down – was unable to sustain performances at that level you need to play in the Championship or Premier League.

“It’s fitness, quality, dealing with pressures of big crowds, being at big clubs and expectations of winning trophies.

“It was an unbelievable education at Hillsborough, pretty much all the first team were full internationals. When there was an international break on, there were hardly any players left for training.

“There were players like Chris Woods, Des Walker, Hinchcliffe, Sheridan, Waddle, Dan Petrescu, then going on a few years you had Di Canio and Carbone.

“Our upbringing, the old YTS jobs of cleaning the boots, sweeping the stands, cleaning the cars, minibus, mopping out the physio room, showers and toilets, was a brilliant one for me.

“I think I have kept a lot of that discipline I learned there throughout my life in professional football. I have tried to pass that on as I have become a more experienced player.”

Humphreys learned a valuable lesson, on his first day as a YTS at Wednesday after a run-in with then manager Trevor Francis.

One of his jobs was to help lay out the boots for the first team and staff.

“I had the staff wall of boots, which included Trevor Francis,” he recalled. “On my first day as a YTS when the first team were in, – their first training session of the season – we got up to Middlewood Road and I had forgotten the manager’s boots.

“If there’s one person in the whole football club you shouldn’t forget their boots, it’s the manager.

“I had to sprint back down to Hillsborough, get his boots, then sprint back up Middlewood Road and say ‘sorry gaffer’.

“They had to start training late, we had to train late, and it was all down to me. Believe me there was a punishment involved, but I won’t say what it was.

“You learn things, and from that day on I never forgot anyone’s boots ever again.”

So how did an avid Blades fan – Humphreys was a regular at Bramall Lane as a youngster – end up playing for the ‘enemy’ back in the early Nineties?

“I was at Sheffield United’s centre of excellence from 10 to about 13, and was let go. I was playing for my local Sunday team, scored a hat-trick and went home for my Sunday dinner, and my dad pulled out a scout’s card.

“He said ‘they want you to go Wednesday’s centre of excellence, what do you think?’. We were still going to watch Sheffield United, and I just got back into Sheffield Boys team and pretty much all the side were at Wednesday.

“It was a no-brainer, because Wednesday wanted me to go and have a trial. They offered me schoolboy forms, 14-16, I left school and did my YTS.

“I made my debut in 1995 at QPR. and someone reminded me just before Christmas, I had been playing first-team football for 20 years, which is pretty amazing.

“It makes me feel old, you say 1995, and players either side of me in the Chesterfield changing room weren’t even born then.”