I didn't survive NSWE cull at Aston Villa but I'm now making my own way as a manager

Stephen Clemence warmly welcomes me into his office. I'm appreciative of his time, and I'm grateful for the warmth, in both senses of the word. It always feels as though the temperature drops markedly the further north you go and, in truth, you can't venture much further north in England than Barrow.

Clemence's office is littered with Domino's boxes. "They're not all mine! That's my staff." And the tub of powdered Bovril? "My assistant's!" Clemence has his feet under the table at Barrow now, although interestingly nobody is actually based at Holker Street. They're the only club in the EFL who actually operate well away from where they call home and only travel to this corner of the Lakes for matches.

"I'm based in Cheshire and being at Barrow we actually train in Manchester," he explains. "It's worked out well really. I'm enjoying it here."

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Domino's - who tell you in their adverts to buy your pizza before the match in order to receive it by half time - are helpfully around the corner from the ground and, for the Barrow players and staff, it'll have tasted a little better on Tuesday night. Aston Villa's young guns were sent back to the Midlands having been comprehensively beaten in the EFL Trophy, and having not looked like taking anything after they conceded inside two minutes.

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It's the second stint of Clemence's still embryonic managerial career. Better known for his association with Steve Bruce, whom he worked under as a player and at various clubs - including Villa - as a member of his faithful coaching staff, Clemence decided two years ago that it was time to sever professional ties and venture out into the world of management himself.

After a year with Gillingham, he joined Barrow before this season and is enjoying life in League Two with a side who have threatened to make the play-offs in the last couple of years - he is in place now to try and finally haul them over the line.

"I've been an under 21s coach, a first-team coach, assistant manager for 13 years in total with Steve," he reflects. "I'm completely loyal to him, he was fantastic to me when I finished playing so I was happy to work for him as long as he wanted me. When our time at West Brom came to an end, I'd made up my mind - I'd sort of been feeling it for the few years before that, that I wanted to have a go myself.

"I spoke to Steve and then went and cracked on with it. He gave me his blessing, he told me I'd been ready for years and to go and have a go at it. I've loved it, it's completely different. It does keep you up at night, whereas when you're assistant or first-team coach it doesn't so much. Not that you don't care, of course you do, but now every decision I make affects a lot of people."

The win over Joseph Gombau's young Villa - who in truth had the last laugh having qualified for the next round of the competition at Barrow's expense - was as timely as it might've been poignant to former employee Clemence. The Bluebirds had won just one of their previous 11 games having topped League Two in September. This might be considered a low key victory but for many locally there is optimism it can be a catalyst for a reverse in form.

Villa, of course, is a club unrecognisable to the one which Clemence left a little over five years ago. It was a sour way in which the relationship ended. The cabbage episode was farcical, but clearly new owners Nassef Sawiris and Wes Edens knew change was required.

They did so and, much like Bruce and Clemence did themselves when taking over from Roberto Di Matteo two years earlier, Dean Smith took them from Championship obscurity to the play-off final - only Smith did so in seven months, not 19, and was ultimately successful having reached Wembley. Clemence looks back now with a 'what might have been' attitude.

"The first season we arrived, the team was down the bottom of the table and that's why a new manager was brought in," he says. "The second season we managed to make a few changes in the summer. We had a really, really good team. Jack Grealish was the best player in the division. There were many others, we signed John Terry. It was a good team to be around, one I enjoyed working with.

"We probably didn't play well enough in the play-off final, but that could've gone a different way. I look back now and still think Fulham should have had a sending off when Jack was stamped on. You get that decision and the whole thing changes, but that's football. They're doing great now."

NSWE have transformed Villa beyond any reasonable expectations. If you'd told the cabbage thrower that the club would be in the Champions League within five years of Glenn Whelan missing that penalty, they'd have probably laughed in delirium. The growth has been, by anybody's standards, exponential.

"When the new owners came in, you hear of their plans," Clemence reasons. "When they first came in there was big talk of Thierry Henry coming in and replacing Steve. You just knew the ambition they had with what they were talking about doing to the training ground, the players they wanted to sign. We didn't get to work with them long enough.

"Normally when new owners come in there's a broom which sweeps clean. That's what happened, but they've done a remarkable job to get the club competing where they are and with the manager they now have in place, he's doing a fantastic job. It certainly looks a different club now."

One man remains from the Bruce and Clemence era - Villa's captain, no less. John McGinn's rise from SPL unknown - certainly unknown as a quantity in English football, even if not for too long - to Champions League captain is as staggering as Villa's transformation as a collective. He has grown in tandem with his surroundings, rising to the challenge of squad competition and constantly making himself a vital cog in the side.

Of course, it might not have even panned out at all if Villa and Bruce hadn't done what needed to be done to convince McGinn that Villa was the place for him, at a time when a particularly inviting switch from Hibernian to Celtic was thought to be on the cards.

"He's a top player, a top individual as well. I've seen him recently, he hasn't changed," Clemence says. "He's still a good lad. At the time it was a great coup from Steve. He worked really hard to get him. Celtic wanted him as well and he had to put a lot of effort in with John and the family to get him to come to Villa. To get that one over the line was fantastic at the time.

"I probably couldn't have said that he would go on to do what he has done, but he definitely had the attitude to achieve that. He has everything a midfielder needs - he's strong, he can run, he's difficult to get the ball off, he can score a goal. He has a great strike on him. He's done great and I'm pleased to see it."

As for Clemence, he's embracing the challenges laid before him as a fully fledged manager - and all that goes with the logistical hurdles which football demands you clear, aspects of the job that normal people won't see and don't always factor in.

"Once you get into management, you don't see your family at all - your head is either in a laptop, looking at the next game and always preparing. It does take its toll," he concludes.

"When I was at Hull, I was living on the Wirral and I was getting up at 5:15am, jumping in the car to get over to Hull, I'd arrived about 7:45, have a shower, get in the dressing room, prepare to do a day's work, stay in a Travelodge at night, train the next day and then when you have a day off you'd maybe travel back to the Wirral.

"People maybe don't realise that all goes on, but I love it. It's great. It's taken me around the country and taken me away from home, but it's also given me a nice life and some great memories. I have enjoyed it and am still enjoying it."