Steven Fletcher helped turn Jacob Brown into a Scotland striker. Now the veteran hitman hopes to lead Dundee United ’s young guns on to the continent.
The 35-year-old has signed a two-year deal at Tannadice after leaving Stoke City. It was at the Bet365 stadium where his pep talks with Brown helped the 24-year-old earn a cap call. Fletcher admitted that he will be expected to be a role model to the youngsters breaking into Jack Ross’ side.
United will find out who their opponents will be in the third round of Europa Conference League on Monday. And Fletcher insisted that he has returned to Scotland, 13 years after he left Hibs, with a sense of responsibility. He said: “I did a lot of work with Jacob last season and saw his game come on leaps and bounds.
“He’s a sponge, he just wants to listen and take it all in. Speaking to the gaffer, United has a lot of very good young lads and I want to do the same for them.
“Jacob was one of those who just wants to learn all the time and I like that. If he says I didn’t help him get his Scotland call up I won’t be happy with him!
“I don’t know how much of a role I played in the actual call-up but I did speak to Frank Rilley [the Scotland national team administrator], who I am still close with from playing with the national team. I mentioned Jacob to him one day so I don’t know what happened after that and if they followed it up on the back of that.
“But a few months later he got his call-up. I was delighted for him because the older I get the more you want to help young players. When I was a young lad I was cheeky and I would answer back, but I loved listening to the older players.
“A lot of them probably thought to themselves ‘he just didn’t listen to a word I said’ but I did – I always wanted to improve my game. There is a point in your career when people start listening to you – I think they think ‘he’s old now so I better start giving him the time of day’.
“That happened for me and I really enjoyed it. When you see the improvements in young players, doing the things you’ve advised them to do, it gives you a little buzz.”
Fletcher left Scotland as a 21-year-old for Burnley. Over the years, he had been linked with a move to Celtic and he also had other options when the Arabs came calling earlier this summer.
He reckons the time was right to return home. Fletcher said: “I still have the hunger and desire, 100 per cent. I wouldn’t be here otherwise.
“I still love it, I love going out to train and still feel like an 18-year-old. People were asking why I was going back to Scotland instead of staying in England but I am at a different stage of my life now.
“I always had it in my head that I’d come up the road because I wanted to get my family settled here. So I always knew that the time would come eventually.
“I spoke to the gaffer even before he came here, it was a few years ago actually, so I knew he liked me and I like the way he speaks. So when he and Tony Asghar [United’s sporting director] got in touch a few weeks ago I knew it would be good for me.
“I had a few options to stay in England and I still feel I can play down there for a while yet. But in my head I want back to Scotland and move on to the next phase of my career. I want to get into coaching and hopefully that’s something I can start looking towards.”
Fletcher is aware of the almost annual links to the Hoops which got the fans at Parkhead talking. He said: “Earlier on in my career when I was linked with Celtic I didn’t have much to do with it.
“At that age you just leave it to agents and all that, only finding things out when they’re pretty much done. So I don’t know how close it came in the early ones but before I signed for Stoke was the closest it came.
"It didn’t happen in the end and I’ll tell that story one day! But I was linked with Celtic a lot over the years – so much I think the Celtic fans were sick of hearing about it.”
