A home-grown player who watched from the stands as a youngster, Josh Coulson is poised and ready to play his part in the season's run in.
Towering centre-half Josh made 14 first team appearances last season and hoped to build on that this season, but the outstanding form of veteran pairing Wayne Hatswell and Phil Bolland has restricted him to seven starts and two sub appearances so far.
However, with Bolland limping off with a hamstring problem in last Saturday's defeat here against Forest Green and likely to be struggling for a couple of weeks, Josh hopes he will be involved in the next few games at least.
"Bolly and Hats have done really well so I can't complain," says Josh, who turned 20 in January. "Hopefully I've got a long career ahead of me so I just have to be patient and work hard and keep learning."
United finished last season with the play-off final defeat at Wembley, which Josh says was still a great experience for him and the other younger players who weren't in the squad on the day, and then he jetted off for a month in Seattle with fellow youth team graduates Robbie Willmott and Jordan Collins.
Under the umbrella of Seattle-based CUFC directors Paul Barry and Adrian Hanauer, the main focus of their visit was "an innovative development programme of cognitive processing development and skill building for athletic mental performance". The cognitive-building and sports psychology methods placed specific focus on key areas of development and advancement for sports performance, such as alertness, concentration and awareness.
It was a busy month for the three lads, who also maintained their fitness by training with Seattle Sounders - in which Hanauer and Barry are both shareholders - and one they thoroughly enjoyed.
"That was a great experience too," he says. "We kept fit by training out there and we did this psychology work too, which was different and interesting because I hadn't seen anything like it before.
"We met some nice people out there who helped us out, and it was great to train with Seattle Sounders, who were in the middle of their season, and see how they operate over there."
Josh has kept an eye on how Sounders have begun their first season in the MLS as a new 'expansion' team, and reveals that their ambitious plans were well under way last summer as they worked toward the signings of former Premiership stars Freddie Ljungberg and Kasey Keller.
"We watched a game at their huge stadium, the one they're playing in this season, which was really impressive, and it's good to see they're doing well," he says.
Josh was even included in the Sounders squad for their friendly against Italian giants Juventus and was delighted to be named in the starting line-up: "I expected to be on the bench but I got to play the whole game, which was an interesting experience.
"The training was different too and I quite enjoyed it," he adds. "It was 'total football', all about passing and a lot less physical, so it was a lot different to this country."
While the lads were in Seattle, Paul Barry had to tell them the news that Jimmy Quinn had left, which Josh admits was a big shock at the time, but he is happy with the way things have developed since then.
"With a new manager being appointed and a few players leaving in the summer too, we didn't really know what to expect when we came in for pre-season, although obviously Paul Carden was still here and quite a few of the same players. But it was good meeting new players and finding out what the new gaffer wants to do, and it's been a good learning curve.
"The gaffer likes to play a bit differently to Jimmy Quinn and he quite likes young players and works with all of us," says Josh, who has also learned a lot from the experienced Bolland and especially Hatswell, who has ambitions to coach in the future.
"It's been good working with them this season and I get on really well with Wayne," says the genial youngster. "He's always coaching me and giving me advice, off the field as well, and he's like a fatherly figure to me and we get on really well."
The youth development scheme at the club has been in the news spotlight recently due to Jez George and Matt Walker's 261-mile walk from Torquay to Cambridge to raise awareness of the inequality in the funding and overall treatment of youth departments at different clubs.
Josh was spotted whilst playing for Cherry Hinton Lions and joined Cambridge City's youth scheme under Jez George at under-15s level, earning a two-year scholarship and transferring to United along with most of City's youth scheme in 2006.
Spending a further two years developing under Jez's guidance and playing for CRC in the Ridgeons League before earning his first pro contract, he is understandably an admirer of the youth set-up: "Jez has done a tremendous job, especially when you consider the amount of funding the youth set up has to do without," he says.
"Another three lads who came through the youth team have just signed pro contracts too, so you can see Jez develops youth players and that's what he's really good at, and the club will benefit from it. It's good for any club but especially one at this level, and the three lads who have just signed are all quite local too, which is good for the club and the area."
As a local lad himself - born at Addenbrooke's, raised in Cherry Hinton and brought to watch games at the Abbey by his Dad - representing Cambridge United is special for Josh and he hopes to get the opportunity a few more times before the end of the season.
"Last season I didn't expect to play as many games as I did and I loved every minute. Obviously I know what the fans are feeling and it's great - the support is brilliant, home and away, and when we went to Barrow last month that just summed it up for me.
"There were loads of them singing their hearts out and it wasn't the nicest of places to go, especially on a Tuesday night in March, but they were still there cheering us on and it really does help you as a player.
"It's been quite frustrating for me personally this season because I would have liked to play more games, but obviously Wayne and Bolly have been doing really well and keeping clean sheets - and not getting injured! Me and Hats are always joking about it, saying he's due an injury because he's getting old, but it's about being patient and waiting for my chance to show what I can do."
Josh is eager to get another chance in the first team and he has made sure he is ready for the manager's call: "I've always trained hard and I've done extra work to keep myself fit so I'm ready for when I come in, so I'm really looking forward to it.
"This is a good place to be and I just want to play as many games as I can and do well, and to play my part in getting the team promoted would be fantastic. If that happens, we could definitely hold our own in League Two - all the facilities, the staff and players, the supporters, we're all up for it."
With the season approaching its climax and Burton suffering a few wobbles as their runaway lead has been cut back to single figures, Josh admits he is surprised that there is still a sniff of a title challenge.
"I didn't expect that to happen. With the lead they had at one time I really thought Burton would run away with it, but obviously they're slipping up at the moment - a 4-0 defeat on Saturday - and you just never know in football," he says.
"We still could catch them and that's what we're all aiming for. This is a very important stage of the season and the play-offs are getting closer, and we need to get on another winning run after slipping up last Saturday.
"The end of last season and the play-off matches were a great experience and there were some great moments - coming back from 2-0 down at Burton, the win and the pitch invasion here, the atmosphere before kick-off at Wembley - and it was brilliant for me in my first year as a pro.
"So if we have to go through the play-offs again I really do fancy us," he concludes.
"We've just had a great run of form and I'm sure we'll get back on track and take a good momentum into those last games. Personally I hope to be a part of it and I'd love to play at Wembley - who knows!"
Andrea Thrussell
web@cambridge-united.co.uk
*An edited version of this interview was published in the programme for the match against Eastbourne Borough on Saturday 11th April 2009.
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