Ron Atkinson, Roland Nilsson and Italian fire: Sweden legend Niclas Alexandersson on his first few weeks at Sheffield Wednesday

He had struck up an early friendship with fellow Scandinavian Petter Rudi and had intended to sit with him, but barely had time to scan down the aisle before he was dragged into a seat close to the front of the bus.

He had been given no option. Ron Atkinson wanted to talk about Swedish football.

“I remember he seemed so very relaxed,” laughs Alexandersson, speaking exclusively to The Star from his car in Gothenburg, where he now works as a football master in a local school.

“He told me to sit with him and he spoke about all the Swedish players he knows. Some of them were not big names and so I was very impressed with him. You could see his passion for football.

“He was a really big help to me. Straight away I felt settled in at the club and he showed a lot of belief in me when I first started.

“Ron was very charismatic and he knew how to talk, different to what I was used to with the managers in Sweden. I really enjoyed playing under him.”

It is just one of the highlights from a whirlwind first few weeks as a Wednesday player. Signed from IFK Göteborg in a deal that took less than 48 hours from first contact to the completion of his medical, Alexandersson arrived for £750,000 with a burgeoning reputation in European football.

“IFK were playing in the Champions League at the time and that was a great arena to get attention from clubs in Europe. I was playing in the national team too,” he remembers.

“It all happened very quickly. At one time it felt as if I would go to Udinese a few weeks before but that never happened. Then Wednesday contacted my agent and within two days I was over signing with the club. It was very quick.

“England is quite similar to Sweden in terms of mentality and lifestyle. The club was familiar to me and it was a good side. Some players in Sweden moved on to some of the really big clubs in Europe and struggled for playing time. Sheffield Wednesday was the perfect size of club for me.

“The Premier League was a big step up coming from the Swedish league. It felt like the best move for me and I'm really happy that I made that move.”

A blonde-haired, right-sided Swedish international at Sheffield Wednesday? Alexandersson was well aware of the reputation he was stepping into at the club.

Roland Nilsson, by then a veteran down at Coventry City having ironically been signed by a Sky Blues director of football by the name Ron Atkinson a few months before, is lauded to this day as perhaps the best foreign player to wear Wednesday colours.

And Nilsson played a role in the younger man’s arrival in Sheffield having struck up a partnership on the national side’s right flank.

“I spoke to Roland over the phone and he obviously recommended the club,” Alexandersson said. “He spoke about the supporters and the way it felt to play for the club.

“I knew about him in Sheffield. I knew he was a highly rated player there and we all knew how much he enjoyed his time with the club. He had only good things to say about the club of course.”

A Champions League starlet and international Alexandersson may have been, he admits the Wednesday changing room was like nothing he had ever experienced before.

Senior pros such as Des Walker and Steve Nicol sat alongside the likes of genius duo Paolo Di Canio and Benito Carbone as the club attempted to welcome a raft of new foreign signings to the fore.

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“It was different,” Alexandersson laughed. “I had some experience of big players from the national team and so on but it was new getting to know people from different countries with different personalities so that helped me. I enjoyed that time.

“There was Petter and myself and also Wim Jonk [Jonk would arrive the following season from PSV], Emerson Thome. The English players had many friends outside of football so it became easy for us to hang out together. We had a lot of good times.

“It was never boring with those sort of personalities in the changing room, especially with the Italians!

“Paolo had very high standards. He's up there among the best I've played with, especially when it comes to how he was around the training ground, he was just outstanding. It's a shame the way it ended but during his time there he was fantastic.

“Carbone, wow. The skills he had and the two of them together? Incredible. They were both a big challenge for the manager of course but as players, they were brilliant to play with.”

Seven matches into his Owls career Alexandersson injured a cruciate ligament and Atkinson was sacked prior to his recovery.

“I was worried being out for that long and we had a new manager,” Alexandersson said of the arrival of Danny Wilson.

“I didn't know if I would get a chance again but Danny put a lot of belief in me and within a few weeks I was back in the team. Then I got those goals against United and everything took off for me...”

Part two of The Star’s exclusive catch-up with Niclas Alexandersson, including insight on his Hillsborough departure and why his son wants to follow in his father’s footsteps, will arrive later this week.