Jack Lester on the hard yards travelled to reach Sheffield United dugout

IN terms of footballing influences, Sheffield United first-team coach Jack Lester was blessed to learn from two of the very best in his formative years at Grimsby Town in Richard O’Kelly and Alan Buckley.

The pair put the Mariners firmly on the map in the late eighties and early nineties, taking them from the old fourth division to the second tier and earning a reputation for being one of the best football sides in the lower leagues along the way.

Many players prospered and went onto have good careers, such as Clive Mendonca, Paul Groves, John McDermott, Neil Woods, Gary Croft and Lester.

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Buckley’s feats at Blundell Park earned him a move to West Brom and he later returned for a second spell at Grimsby.

Playing days: Bradford's Ashley Westwood tussles with Jack Lester.Playing days: Bradford's Ashley Westwood tussles with Jack Lester.
Playing days: Bradford's Ashley Westwood tussles with Jack Lester.

O’Kelly, who moved into coaching after ending his playing days, later successfully linked up with Sean O’Driscoll and Dean Smith after working with Buckley – and was Smith’s assistant at Villa Park before leaving last August.

Buckley was a perfectionist who did not suffer fools. It was his way or the highway. O’Kelly was more of a vibrant force of energy on the training ground, but with those same sky-high standards.

They have both left their mark on Lester, for sure.

Lester said: “He [O’Kelly] still texts me and I look back and I’d do anything for him. He was so enthusiastic. Alan was more ‘Be here or do one!’, but Rich was full of positivity and you’d pick up little bits.

Stuart McCall, Paul Heckinbottom and Jack Lester at the Randox Academy, Sheffield. (Picture: Simon Bellis/Sportimage)Stuart McCall, Paul Heckinbottom and Jack Lester at the Randox Academy, Sheffield. (Picture: Simon Bellis/Sportimage)
Stuart McCall, Paul Heckinbottom and Jack Lester at the Randox Academy, Sheffield. (Picture: Simon Bellis/Sportimage)
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“Rich only really had a go at me once when I’d done a warm-up with the first team when they wanted me at the front of the line when I was a young pro’. It is pretty much the only time when he had a go at me – for a lack of enthusiasm. It made me think ‘to be at the front of a warm-up, it’s that important’. You pick up those clues along the way and pass them on.

“Alan was a real strong-minded man in how we had to play. Everything came through strikers to feet and if you didn’t hold it up, then he’d let you know. I was subbed off at Walsall in the Championship once because 20 minutes or half an hour in, I’d miscontrolled one into my feet and that broke down everything we had worked on in the week.

“I’d just hit the post and he brought me off...

“It [Grimsby education] was brilliant for me. I did not know how important that was as I was just playing. But with the work all week – how to get hold of the ball, make runs in the channels and all these little things – without him, I’d have just been a bit of an individual.

“I was playing football in the park with my mates [before joining Grimsby]. Alan taught me the game and where to be and how to get hold of the ball.

“It was a bit more brutal than that if I am honest...”

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All the best teams train as relentlessly as they play on a match-day and it is the ethos that Paul Heckingbottom is trying to cultivate again at Sheffield United – with that formula proving so successful during the Chris Wilder years of plenty.

Slackness was not tolerated and standards were high, and just as Buckley and O’Kelly imparted their knowledge and got their points across to Lester and co at Grimsby, so the former striker, Stuart McCall and Heckingbottom are intent on ensuring that every session counts at the club’s Shirecliffe training base.

That is the message below first-team level as well.

Only this week, a coaching reshuffle has seen Michael Collins, head of individual player development, step up to Under-23’s lead coach, while Under-18s head coach Derek Geary has been promoted to academy manager, which was Lester’s old position.

Meanwhile, ex-England Under-21 head coach Adi Boothroyd will take on the role of academy coach mentor and consultant.

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Lester added: “The best players and sportsmen are so competitive and the week has got to be competitive.

“You cannot just train at mid-tempo all week and have a conversation at the weekend and then it is not in the ‘legs’ of the players.

“It won’t come overnight, but we will be very clear what we are after. Players want to work hard and be competitive; you are naturally competitive because you want to get on in the sport.”

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