When Jamie Day walks down his local high street in Sidcup, no-one bats an eye-lid. It’s a very different story when he steps out on the bustling roads of Dhaka, 5,000 miles away.
“It’s quite strange,” admitted the former Arsenal youngster, who has spent the past two years as head coach of the Bangladesh national team.
“Obviously in England, no-one has a clue who me or my staff are. But in Bangladesh people come up to us and take pictures.
“I enjoy it, we all do, but it was a bit weird at first to keep getting stopped all the time in the street for photos.”
The journey to Bangladesh has been a long one for Day. It’s one that started full of promise as a teenager at Arsenal during the 1990s. He was given a professional contract by Arsene Wenger, trained alongside the likes of Dennis Bergkamp, Marc Overmars and Patrick Vieira and worked with some of the finest coaches in England.
But, disillusioned by a lack of a pathway towards the first-team, Day began to lose his way. By his own admission he ‘downed tools’ and started to go through the motions before eventually leaving for Bournemouth in 2001.
Before long the midfielder, who had represented England up to Under-18s level, had dropped into non-league football and by the age of 24 he was already thinking about a coaching career.
Day spent five years as player-manager at Welling United from 2009 to 2014, later having stints at Ebbsfleet and Braintree, before taking up the role of first-team coach at Gillingham in 2017.
He joined Barrow as assistant manager in February 2018, but within a couple of months he received a phone call that would take his career path in a very different direction.
“I got the call off a friend of mine who is an agent and he said the Bangladesh job was available,” said the 40-year-old.
“I put my CV in, then went and met them in London and then it was basically done.
“I didn’t even know where Bangladesh was in the world. I didn’t know what it was like or anything about the football. But I saw it as an international job and you don’t get a lot of chances to manage internationally.”
When he took the job, Bangladesh hadn’t won a game for three years and sat 197th in the FIFA ranking, the country’s lowest-ever standing.
Now, two years on, they have risen 10 spots and Day - who is assisted by former Walsall player Stuart Watkiss - has nine wins from 19 games.
He has put together a young squad that he believes has the potential to progress and one that has already enjoyed some success, including winning a bronze medal at the South Asian Games in 2019.
“It's been an eye-opener," he said. "It’s a completely different world to the UK, but you adapt.
“Sometimes we haven't had enough balls, bibs, stuff like that. I remember once we’d just played a World Cup game, got out the airport and onto the coach when suddenly all these police came around us.
"I thought they were taking us back to Dhaka, but they pulled us over and it turned out our driver was just a random person who didn't have a license. We all had to get off and get cabs back.
"I was fuming at the time but we have got better at it over the two years and we’ve got things in place now that has ensured it has improved, but we need to improve further.
“The boys have done really well, they listen and they want to learn and that’s all you can really ask for. They’ve had some really good experiences now and over the two years we’ve made some big strides, but we want to continue doing that and to push on further."
With football across the globe currently suspended due to the coronavirus pandemic, Day is back home in Kent with his wife Keeley and four children.
Having spent the majority of the past two years overseas, it is a welcome relief to have some extended family time - but the Arsenal academy graduate admits he is looking forwarded to getting started with Bangladesh again.
Day’s role now is a far cry from where it all started for him as an 10-year-old, when he joined the Gunners as a trainee and went into their centre of excellence.
He progressed through the youth ranks alongside the likes of Ashley Cole, Omer Riza and Julian Gray - winning the Premier Academy League title in 1998 as well as the Floodlit Cup.
During that time he was training regularly with Arsene Wenger’s first team and made the bench for a game against Crystal Palace at Highbury in February, 1998.
“We won 1-0 and Giles Grimandi scored,” Day recalled. “The squad was quite bare at the time and Arsene patched up a team to get out there and we managed to get the win, which was obviously great for us being on the bench.”
Arsenal went on to win the Premier League and FA Cup double that year, completing a memorable first full season in charge for the Frenchman.
“Arsene came in and changed the club and philosophy and obviously made it a much better place,” said Day. “For us, it was good to see new ideas and how things were done from a foreign coach.
“But obviously the flip side of it was the players he was bringing in were elite level and for us younger lads we were never going to get the opportunity to get into the first team.
“But to train with those players and to see them on a daily basis was a great experience as well. Just training with players like Dennis Bergkamp was something that a lot of people didn’t get the opportunity to do.
“Dennis was miles better than anyone else. I remember Marc Overmars was very good as well, but the things Dennis did in training and his vision and awareness was a step up.”
Day left Arsenal less than a year after the 1998 double triumph, agreeing a move to Bournemouth, who were then in Division Two.
Two years later he dropped out of the Football League to join Dover Athletic and whilst he went on to enjoy a fine non-league career, he still looks back now on his decision to leave Arsenal with a tinge of regret.
“Looking back, what I probably should have done is got myself really fit and pushed myself to stay in that environment and train with those players for longer,” he said.
“Then maybe I should gave gone to a club that was in the Championship or another Premier League club where I might have had a better chance of getting into the first team.
"I think I got a bit lazy. Instead of thinking I needed to get fitter or do a bit extra to give myself a chance, I sort of went the other way. For a footballer I was a bit heavy and I shouldn’t have been.
"I didn't stay out in the afternoons to do extra because I just thought I wasn’t going to make it at Arsenal. I was playing reserves games once a week and sort of downed tools a little bit.
“I left for the first club that came in for me when I should maybe have took my time selecting the right club for how I played and the level. Maybe that is the only regret.”
