It wasn't quite a regret but there was a definite wistful feel in the tone of Scot Cuthbert voice.

"I look back at my time as a player with Stevenage and I'll always say this - I really wish I was captain of this club with this group of players. 

"I don't mean that as a dig on the previous players, but this group of players are just fantastic to work with. 

"I look back at my time and it was a difficult period for the club. We were in League Two and we had COVID and we had the change of managers and quite a high turnover of players. 

"It's great now to come into the club, in a different capacity as a coach, but to see it a lot more settled and in a higher league and with a good squad of players adding to that as well. 

"The club has really grown in the last two years which is great to see." 

The 37-year-old left Boro in 2022 as part of Steve Evans' initial rebuild.

By that point he had made 154 appearances, scoring nine goals since joining from Luton Town in the summer of 2018.

But after two years at Woking, where he had done some coaching, he came back to the Lamex as part of Alex Revell's management team, working as first-team coach with Neil Banfield the assistant manager.

And the change of role is one he has taken on with gusto.

"I love it," he said with a little smile, "I really do love my job.

"It's demanding, it's sometimes stressful and sometimes really enjoyable, but I wouldn't change it for the world. 

"I love coming in here. I love working with the gaffer and Neil and the rest of the staff. 

"And I said this to the gaffer last week - it makes your life easy as a coach when you're coming into a group of lads who want to do well. 

"There’s obviously large percentage of the team that have built a relationship over the last two years, they know each other inside out, but their work ethic and their willingness to work to their maximum, every single day, whether that is in a meeting or out on the pitch or in the gym. 

"They're a credit to themselves, they really are, and when you've got that kind of group, they make life easy." 

Cuthbert played alongside Revell at the club and was also his skipper when the current boss was given the managerial hot-seat for the first time.

That was his ticket back and having that relationship helps, but the big Scot is also full of praise for Banfield who has coached at Arsenal, Rangers and QPR among others.

"Obviously I’ve known the gaffer for years," said Cuthbert, "but I didn’t know Neil too well until we both got the jobs.

"But he’s been brilliant for me. He’s an older head who’s worked at massive clubs and with massive players and the sessions and all the different ideas in his head, it's just crazy. 

"Once he starts talking I'm just really taking it all in and learning from him and stealing ideas from him. He's helped me massively and he’s been great in terms of giving me advice. 

"But everyone else too [like Marlon Beresford, the goalkeeping coach and Keith Bell and all the others]. 

"We've got a good group, we really do. It's a small group but it’s one where we're all willing to chip in and work hard together." 

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The trio also know they don't need to reinvent the wheel, knowing they can simply carry on the work done by their predecessors, Steve Evans and Paul Raynor, while simply gently introducing Revell's new way of thinking and playing 

Cuthbert said: "We’re obviously a new coaching and management staff and since the start of the season we've been really conscious not to bombard the players with information. 

"You don’t want to throw everything you've got at them for the whole of pre-season because then everything just becomes muddled and the players will struggle to take in some information. 

"I think it's important that we keep the values that have stood the club in good stead over the past couple of years but it’s also really important that as the weeks evolve, we drop in bits of information, just little bits on how we press for example. 

"We want to be the kind of team that wins the ball high up in the pitch, which I think we're proving to be. 

"We want the lads to trust each other on the ball when they do win it, we don't want to just give the ball back to the opposition, we want to build a little bit of attack and a little bit of pressure and get bodies in the box and create opportunities.  

"There's lots of things we can improve on but they are lots of little snippets from all areas of play. 

"As a [new] coach, one thing I've learned is that you're never satisfied with any performance or any training session. You always want to keep on improving and make the team as good as they can be."

Knowing what information to get across, as well as when and how much, is the learning point that Cuthbert takes away from sessions.

That isn't always easy with the rigours of League One football.

"It's very difficult in this league because you have so many games," the coach admitted.

"If you've got a Saturday, Tuesday block of games in a three-week period, then it's really difficult to get all the messages that you want across to the players in such a small time frame.

"That's where we've been quite good. We go through some videos with the lads, we make sure that we debrief on the games and review games that are coming up and then we try and link that to the sessions that we're putting on out on the grass. 

"That might be to try and stop a certain threat of the opposition or to try and exploit a certain weakness but we do try and link it so the lads can see it on the video and then they can also see it on the training ground as well. 

"They're learning in both ways. 

"It's nice when you get a Saturday to Saturday block because it gives you more opportunities on the training ground and in the meeting rooms to chat to them and get more information across. 

"It gets slightly more challenging when you've got so many games and all the travel as well and the need to recover."

Stevenage are now in the middle of a rest period, a four-day break with their scheduled game at home to Bolton Wanderers postponed due to international call-ups.

But when the players reconvene on Monday ahead of a trip to Mansfield Town, you can bet one man will be eager to get going again, with his band of brothers.