HARRISON STEPS UP

JOHN LYONS TALKS TO DEFENDER HARRISON BURKE ABOUT LANDING HIS EFL CHANCE WITH WALSALL...

- John Lyons

Unfortunately for him - or fortunately, as it turned out - his then-Chester academy manager Calum McIntyre didn't see things the same way.

"I had a meeting with him when I was 14 or 15 with my mum and dad," the recently-turned 23-year-old told our sister publication, The Football League Paper. "I was saying 'I think I'm a number ten and if you don't play me there, I'm leaving'.

"I was adamant, but he just sat me down and said 'Look, if you want to play number ten, you can - but you're not playing it here'. He said 'If you want to have a career in the game, play centre-half' and I never really looked back.

"I trusted him and I feel he trusted me. Later he gave me the armband for the youth team and when he got the first team job - a big job with big expectations - to have a 19-year-old centre-back playing almost every game when I was fit kind of showed he believed in me. You get confident, you get a bit of experience and keep working on your next steps."

Having spent a decade at hometown club Chester and making more than 150 senior appearances in the process, the highly sought-after defender took his biggest step yet with a summer move to Walsall.

He may have wondered what he would walk into after the Saddlers let slip a big lead in the League Two promotion race and then lost the playoff final to AFC Wimbledon last term. Yet he needn't have worried.

"I thought there might have been a grey cloud over the team but from the first day it was pretty clear from the management, staff and the players that we're ready to do it again - we can put it right this year," he explained.