Doncaster Rovers exclusive part two: James Coppinger is 'swimming against the tide most days but we've started the ball rolling'

He is not. The club he loves, the team he served in nearly 700 games, is having a tough time and supporters are understandably frustrated.

His job is difficult, constantly trying to push for more – more resources, better players, better support for the current squad – to those holding the purse strings, then eke the most out of what they give him. Football people like Coppinger always want more because top-level sport is about trying to better yourself.

But Coppinger is by nature a positive person and his hope is that the work he is putting in now will allow him to enjoy the job in the future.

In the impatient world of football, it is the 42-year-old's job to look at the bigger picture and plan ahead.

“My role is to communicate between the head coach (Danny Schofield) and the chief exec (Gavin Baldwin, with whom he says he has a very good relationship) to make footballing decisions, to give advice and to support all the departments – physios, S&C (strength and conditioning), analysts, scouts,” he explains. “In the past we've not had anybody doing that.

“Danny wants to focus on football and my role allows him to do that.

“I have to keep people positive, upbeat and motivated. That's probably one of my biggest responsibilities.

“My role is to look at what we've got available and make resources based on that, not want we want. We're a League Two club with the average League Two budget.”

But it is a battle. He uses the word “relentless” more than once. Just speaking to him you can feel how draining it must be.

“I feel like most days I'm swimming against the tide but a lot of career was the same,” points out Coppinger, released by Newcastle United as a youngster and relegated with Exeter City, the first club where he established himself as a first-teamer before going on to make himself a legend in South Yorkshire.

“I spent 17 years at this football club and we had three promotions and a Football League Trophy. One year we got into the play-offs but the other 13 were tough. That's football, it's relentlessly hard.”

So what motivates him to keep swimming against the tide?

“You have to care for the football club, the players and the staff and want to see them improve,” he says.

“I was painting the (training ground) Portakabins in the summer and trying to get people in to do voluntary work to help.

“Am I enjoying it? There's nothing you can enjoy about what's happening at the minute apart from the hope that things will change.

“That's definitely what keeps me going and the head coach as well, when he sees bits of what he does in training happening in a game.

“We've started the ball rolling and that's what I enjoy. The roadblocks and the bumps in the road are part of it, you just want fewer of them.

“I knew from the outset what I was getting into and what success looked like. Success is having a clear plan and sticking to it, things don't just happen overnight.

“It's hard because I have a status at this club. I don't like pictures of me up and people making a fuss of me, that's gone. I want it to be about the players on the pitch, the coaches, the analysts. We have staff meetings every single morning and they know where we are as a club.

“But I feel the role is suited to me, that's why I took it.”

He believes he is making progress, even if 12th in League Two and one win in eight may not feel like it to fans who feel there should have been more investment in a club which two years ago was competing for promotion to the Championship.

“I liken it to a seed,” says Coppinger. “We need watering, the environment needs to be right and that is the support. If we get that, we will grow, if we don't, it will just die.

“This is potentially the beginning if we get the right investment and the right backing and support. Right now we're trying to stem the flow.

“Out of the four clubs that came down, we're in the highest place. Wimbledon, Gillingham and Crewe are finding it hard for the same reasons. We find ourselves 12th, about where we should be for our budget.

“We were six points off the play-offs with a game in hand when we played Salford (three games ago) and getting there would be an unbelievable achievement but it's not seen like that.

“We've got 18 players signed up for next season with three signing new contracts recently based on the environment the coach has created. We're without eight (injured) players and the lads coming in are going to find it hard. We need eight players to play 40 games a season. If we have that next season, I'd think we'll have a chance of getting promoted but we haven't had it the last two seasons and it means you haven't got your best players.

“But we've got some good people in the building.”

That, more than anything, gives him hope that one day he can say he is enjoying life at Rovers again.