Joe Maloney said it is a massive privilege to still be involved with a club he believes feels like home.

The 20-year-old began this season as a member of Lee Carsley’s Development Squad but has since taken up more of a coaching role with Brentford’s successful Youth Team.

With Joe on the coaching staff, Jon De Souza’s side finished second in the Under-18 Professional Development League Two South and finished runners-up in last night’s Under-18 PDL Two final.

Speaking to Bees Player Joe said he has enjoyed his extra coaching responsibilities given to him this season.

The midfielder doesn’t see moving from playing to coaching as being a backwards step but rather as another way of staying in football at a club that he holds close to his heart.

“It was a meeting with Ose Aibangee that I was quite keen to have because I was unsure of my future at the club,” said Joe.

“I had already been coaching within the Academy and that was something that I was quite keen to go into.

“It wasn’t a sad meeting at all, I just wanted to know what I was doing with my future.

“Ose said to me that he rates me quite highly as a coach and thinks that I can make something of myself in the coaching industry.

“He asked me to help out with the Youth Team and carry on with the work that I was doing at The Dome with the young ones.

“It has been quite easy and it wasn’t that much of a dramatic change.

“My first year as a pro I was just observing on Tuesdays and Thursdays.

“This year I have been working on Monday, Thursday and Friday’s and I have been more involved with the players.

“I did a few match-days with the players which is a bit more and now I am in with the Youth Team a bit more.

“My dream has always been to work in football or in sport whether that be as a footballer, PE Teacher or coach.

“I don’t see it as a massive disappointment.

“I have been at this club for six or seven years so it is almost home to me.

“To still be involved with the club is a massive privilege especially the way the club is heading.

“Obviously I would love to have made a league start or come on in the cup but I am not crying about it.”

Joe has been at Brentford for the past seven years, joining as a 14 year-old, long before the new Academy set-up under Ose Aibangee was created.

The 20-year-old said that sometimes he has to remind himself about how far the club, and the Academy in particular, have come in his time.

Joe thinks his experiences can be useful in helping keep the younger Academy boys grounded and reminding them how lucky they are.

“It is a different club from when I first walked in,” said Joe.

“The first-team have progressed massively and the Academy have done the same thing.

“I don’t think some of the kids in the Academy realise how lucky they are with the difference between the Academy now and where it was when I was 14 or 15 with how good the coaching is and all the kit, equipment and the new dome.

“It has all come on massively.

“That is all credit to Ose Aibangee, Matthew Benham and all the people supporting the club behind the scenes.

“It is good to have a culture at the club.

“I have spoken to a few of the Academy players when they leave a bit of kit behind at the side of the pitch and go home and forget it.

“I told them that when I was their age I had to pay for my own kit.

“It was a black puma top with no Brentford badge whereas now they get given a bag full of kit.

“It is important to still have people at the club who know the club from the bottom down.

“I have been at the training ground for seven years now so I know everything about the club and the training ground.”

Joe said that crossing the divide between player and coach has given him a new perspective of football.

As a player he said he had no idea of the work that went into preparing for and running each training session and match but that is something he very much appreciates now he is the one running those sessions.

“You have longer days as a coach than a player,” said Joe.

“Before I was maybe getting home at two or three o’clock every day.

“Now I am getting home at eight or nine o’clock which I prefer because it keeps me busy.

“I understand the game a lot better in terms of how things go on behind the scenes.

“As a player you are bit naïve because you turn up and everything is laid out for you, your session is put on for you, you train, you eat and then you go home.

“Now you start to understand the hard work that goes into how the sessions are put on.

“I never understood how much work goes on behind the scenes that I now appreciate.”