Michael Duff has had a busy first day at work with meetings, media commitments, first team training and two matches at the training ground as the Under-23s take on Plymouth Argyle in the Central League while the Under-18s play Bristol Rovers in the Youth Alliance Cup (1pm kick-off both).
He reflected on an eventful few days which saw him return as manager to the club he made almost 400 appearances for.
"The relationship I’ve got with the club, the affinity, the manager it was a big wrench to leave but I got an opportunity to come home and get into first team management," he told the gathered media during the first press conference of his managerial career.
"It’s a place that I know and that’s close to my heart so after some thoughts with the family, and after a while you’ve got to take the plunge and this has been a long-term plan for about 10 years now," he added.
"The coaching badges started 10 years ago, the last two or three years of my playing career I started analysing things differently compared to what a normal player would for this moment now and I’m looking forward to it.
"The board have been great, they’ve shown a lot of faith in what I believe I can do and they worked hard to get the deal done so from a starting point as a manager they’ve shown real support for me.
"I’d like to think I got the job on merit not just because I used to play here. The same thing happened at Burnley I didn’t get the job under the manager because I played 400 games here.
"I’d like to think I’m good at what I do and I think I showed the board that and it’s up to me to prove that."
"The session I’ve just watched there was good. The intensity of the session was really good and I’ve been speaking to Russ (Milton) over the past two or three days and I’ve been watching games myself and there’s definitely something to work with.
"We need to build relationships and I know Russ personally and we’ve already been using that as a sounding board and building a new professional relationship rather than a playing relationship.
I need to give everyone an opportunity, it’s a clean slate for everybody and I don’t want any assumptions on any body until I’ve seen everyone."