Steve Cotterill is set to be named the new Burnley boss. MATT HORN, who covered the Clarets for the Lancashire Evening Telegraph for two years, gives an unique insight into the man he has met many times...

THE first time I met Steve Cotterill was as a football reporter for the Western Daily Press based in Bristol.

I was sent to Whaddon Road to interview Cheltenham's young manager ahead of the non-league side's first round FA Cup tie, their first in decades.

I walked past a group of men working in the car park, flattening new areas ahead of the expected big crowd the next day. The foreman was directing his young colleagues but was busy with a spade himself.

I reached reception and explained I had an appointment with the boss.

"You've just walked past him," I was told. Yes, the man hard at work with the club's apprentices was the manager plotting his club's path to glory.

One thing Clarets fans can be sure of is that their new manager is not afraid of hard work and will move heaven and earth, sometimes literally, to get things right.

Since that first meeting I have followed his career with great interest. He impressed me from the start with his drive and passion - and his record at Cheltenham was outstanding.

I was a reporter at Wembley when his side lifted the FA Trophy. I was at Old Trafford for the FA Trophy draw later that year when he managed to get some time to talk football with Alex Ferguson.

I was covering the Clarets for the Lancashire Evening Telegraph when Cotterill masterminded the 2002 FA Cup victory that took Cheltenham into the previously unchartered waters of the fifth round.

Prior to that match we spoke and he told me how impressed he had been with both Stan Ternent and Sam Ellis when he worked alongside them at an FA coaching course - and the respect appeared to be mutual.

It was no surprise that Cotterill was soon moving on, handed the task of bringing better days back to Stoke City but, in contrast, it was a shock when he left the Potteries to become Howard Wilkinson's number two at Sunderland.

Hindsight is a wonderful thing, and is probably the gift most football managers would like to have, but it would be fair to say the move might not have been the right one.

From being one of the most respected and decorated young coaches in the game he became associated with the failed Wilkinson era.

Happily, his recent work alongside Micky Adams at Leicester proved that his stock within the game remains high.

Burnley chairman Barry Kilby knows it is a tough ask to replace Ternent, the man who was given such an emotional farewell by fans last month. Many have been interviewed, the decision has not been rushed.

Now Cotterill is about to be handed the chance to renew his promising managerial career and, if he does fulfil that promise at Turf Moor, the fans are in for some great times.