'There are a lot of good, young talented players' – David Dunn on the next generation of Blackburn Rovers talent

But fast forward two decades back to the present day and the boot is now very much on the other foot.

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It is now Dunn’s responsibility, in his role as assistant to under-21 coach and fellow Academy graduate Damien Johnson, to help ensure the current crop of Rovers youngsters fulfil their undoubted potential.

It is a role which the 36-year-old is clearly relishing and one which he would have liked to have taken on sooner.

Instead last summer Dunn was allowed to leave the club and join Oldham Athletic, where he spent six months, firstly as a player and then as manager, before he returned ‘home’ in February.

“It’s been absolutely great,” said the former England international of being back at Rovers. “I’m really grateful to Eric (Kinder, head of academy), Alan (Irvine, assistant manager), Rob (Kelly, first-team coach) and obviously the owners for bringing me back.

“As soon as it came about I thought it would be the perfect job for me and that’s proved to be the case.

“If truth be known I thought there might have been something at the end of last season but whatever reason it wasn’t to be.

“But I’m delighted to be back here now and I’m really enjoying working with Damien and the young lads.

“Me and Damien have a really good relationship and we bounce off each other really well. We’ve very different characters – we’re chalk and cheese – but he’s good for me and hopefully I’m good for him as well.

“And, as I say, it allows us to bounce off each other, and I think the lads are enjoying working under us.”

Results suggest as much with Rovers U21s having ended the season on the back of a five-game unbeaten run which sent them through to the U21 Premier League Division Two play-off semi-finals, where they were beaten by a star-studded and vastly more experienced Arsenal 2-1 at the Emirates.

“Me and Damien are really proud of what they have done,” said Dunn, who missed the match as he was at the UEFA headquarters in Nyon putting the finishing touches to his UEFA Pro Licence.

“It was disappointing to have lost to Arsenal but the lads deserve loads of credit for the run they’ve put together.

“And you’ve got to remember who Arsenal had out there that night. They had so much experience on the pitch with (Tomas) Rosicky, (Santi) Carzola, both internationals, as well as (Calum) Chambers and (Serge) Gnabry, while arguably the best player of the pitch when we played and beat them at home a few weeks earlier, (Dan) Crowley, wasn’t even playing.

“The lads weren’t great in the first half but they hung in there, got it back to 1-1, and we were in the ascendancy before their winning goal.”

Nine of the 13 players who took to the field in the last-four loss to Arsenal had played their part in Rovers’ U18s run to the FA Youth Cup semi-finals.

Those players will make up the bulk of the club’s U21 team next season and there are high hopes that a number will push through into the senior side.

Dunn said: “There are a lot of good, young talented players within the club but we can’t rush them.

“We’ve had a good run, the U18s got to the FA Youth Cup semi-finals, we got to the play-off semi-finals, but what we can’t do is think they are suddenly ready for Championship football because the demands of that are really challenging.

“What we don’t what to do is rush them too much.”

One player also on show on the Emirates who has proved he could be ready for the demands Dunn warns of is winger Connor Mahoney, who made two appearances for the first team at the back end of the season.

“I thought he coped well,” said Dunn, like Mahoney, a lifelong Rovers fan.

“And that’s what you’re hoping. When a young player first breaks into the side you want him to cope. It’s not about him being the best player. Obviously if he is, then great.

“What you don’t want them to be is not ready, and look like they’re in waters too deep for them. But he coped and there’s more to come from him.

“He’s a young lad that’s developing and he knows himself what he needs to improve on and what he’s really good at. And we’ve got to help him.”

By ‘we’ Dunn means the clutch of tight-knit bunch of coaches down at the Academy and at the senior training centre.

“Billy (Barr, U18 lead coach) and Jonesy (Ian Jones, U18 assistant coach) down the bottom with Eric Kinder are doing a really good job and up at the top we’ve got Damien, myself, Alan and Rob.

“The big thing for me, where the club is at the minute, is to have people who really care about it.

“If you look around the coaching staff, both senior and the Academy, you’re starting to get a team together that really care about the club and want it to do well.”

But the unity which Dunn talks passionately of is in contrast to the growing disconnect between the supporters and the club’s owners Venky’s.

“The fans will be disappointed with how things have gone and rightfully so because things have gone downhill,” said Dunn.

“But then a little bit of me has sympathy with the owners because they’ve shelled out a load of money and at the moment they don’t seem to have too much to show for it. I think it’s pretty clear what’s gone on. They have been badly advised off certain people.

“Now there seems to be a little bit of a stand-off. I can understand both sides. I can understand the supporters and I can understand the owners.

“We are where we are and we need to come up with a solution for the best of the football club. Whether it’s owners, supporters, players, management, it doesn’t really matter, there’s no group or individual that’s going to be more than this football club because of the history and the traditions that it has got.

“I know there’ll be many people out there who say I should shut up and be quiet but, if we can, if possible, stick together and you just never know what’s around the corner in football.”