Alan Biggs: Another Sheffield Wednesday prospect to watch out for ... now they are all getting a chance

In the case of Hunt, Wednesday’s Under 18s captain, it could all have been so different without the right handling. Now let’s be honest, all clubs make mistakes with kids. Wednesday’s most famous gaffe was in ditching Jamie Vardy, of course. Arsenal, we now discover, sent Harry Kane packing at the age of nine.

As if you can tell with any kid of that age! Nearly always the crime is “being too small.”

Right, so here’s a welcome tale that’s the reverse of all that. It’s not entirely to scale because any player going on to achieve a fraction of Kane’s or Vardy’s exploits has some career to look forward to.

But Hunt’s development as a highly promising midfielder at Hillsborough, maybe the next to emerge in the senior squad, deserves highlighting right across the game at a time when clubs make judgments, for good or bad, ridiculously early.

Academy manager Steven Haslam relates how Hunt, who has just signed his first pro contract, has continuously been backed by the club in a battle against his physical dimensions – and how such faith, from the age of seven in this instance, can pay off. “Right through his schoolboy and academy programme Alex was the smallest in his group,” Haslam told me. “But he was technically the best. In small, tight playing areas he was outstanding. On bigger areas, he had less impact. We took that into consideration. We played Alex down the age groups so that he was playing with lads physically similar to him.”

As we know, there is no set timetable for the growth of the human body. It seems Wednesday’s wait for Hunt to catch up with his peers is paying off.

Haslam, on my Sheffield Live show, reported: “He’s put on a growth spurt in the last 18 months and his technical qualities are now coming to the fore. So there’s room for all types of players to come through.” Wednesday are picky, believing in smaller numbers rather than large; quality over quantity if possible. After so many fallow years since the millennium, when Haslam himself was part of the last sizeable batch, featuring the likes of Alan Quinn, Derek Geary, Leigh Bromby and Matt Hamshaw, Wednesday now have eight or nine in or around the senior squad. Jordan Thorniley (sadly the latest victim of the club’s injury jinx) and Sean Clare seized their initial chances with particular aplomb.

“The history has not been great, but we’ve made efforts to reverse that,” says Haslam, who feels the current crop has helped invigorate the academy by “showing others a pathway to the first team” and also advertising the club on the recruitment front.

Crucially, new boss Jos Luhukay did not act entirely out of necessity when he drafted youngsters into his injury-ravaged squad from the off. Notes Haslam: “His history shows a record of promoting young players” and he has been “different class in embracing what we’re doing.”

Quite simply, nothing goes further to restoring the morale of a club – outside of the excitement of an FA Cup run. After the caution of Luhukay’s selection in the first, drawn, fifth round game with Swansea – and despite the demands of Aston Villa’s Championship visit this weekend - I hope Luhukay fields his strongest possible side for Tuesday’s replay and throws everything at securing a potential home glamour tie with Spurs in the quarter-finals.