Jack Lester loving life at Sheffield United after being hailed in terrace chant

Not many clubs around the Championship or beyond will have a chant for their first-team coach. But it is a measure of Jack Lester’s impact at Sheffield United, and connection with the club from the city of his birth, that he has been immortalised in song towards the end of United’s promotion campaign.

There is, as the tune goes, no-one better than Jack - or Jackie, for the purposes of the song - Lester to teach United’s strikers how to score. What a job he has done in that respect, helping Oli McBurnie to his best goals return this season since he came to the Blades and transforming Iliman Ndiaye into a 15-goal machine who could have easily had another five on top to go with his plethora of assists.

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Boss Paul Heckingbottom has frequently highlighted the good work of those around him, with assistant manager Stuart McCall also featuring in a terrace reworking of Status Quo’s Rockin’ All Over the World. This is a team effort in the truest sense of the word, with Lester describing his role overseeing the club’s strikers as “an amazing experience”.

“I’ve loved it, absolutely loved it,” the Sheffield-born former Blades striker said. “It’s nice having a narrow focus, if you like. It’s about with the ball and the attacking play, focusing on the strikers in particular.

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“I’ve really enjoyed us going to a front three, that was quite nice and new and there was some interesting stuff going on there. It’s been an amazing experience.

“I was coaching strikers when I played, volunteering at Forest’s academy, so it’s something I’ve done for a long time and something I love.”

All three of United’s senior coaching staff are Yorkshire-born, with boss Heckingbottom possessing an innate understanding of South Yorkshire values from his Barnsley roots and both McCall and Lester - and goalkeeping coach Matt Duke - all representing the Blades at varying points of their playing careers.

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Asked what the secret of their success has been, Lester smiled: “All born in Yorkshire! It just has. I played with Stu, and me and Hecky worked together very closely in the academy. There’s some good work in there in terms of the development of players so we knew each other inside out before we even started.

“We’ve got an affinity with the area and the balance is really good. We all have our eyes on different things, our expertise is in different areas. The manager is brilliant to work for and we’ve got a real good spirit.

“We’re all very competitive, and you can see that at times. The managers I played for had competitive environments, and that produced competitive teams.”

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