For more than two decades now Dario Gradi has been churning out players from his Crewe Alexandra academy. The game's longest-serving manager has developed youngsters from the club's own youth system, as well as taking discarded players from other clubs and turning them into England internationals, such as David Platt and Geoff Thomas, and turned player production into a fine art.
But at the moment there is another star on the horizon, except that in this case the player concerned is NOT a Crewe player, well not permanently anyway.
John Otsemabor is currently on loan at Gresty Road from his home-town club, Liverpool, another in the long line of players who have been part of one of football's most enduring relationships between clubs and the young defender's form has been at the heart of the Alex's recent run of four wins out of five that has eased the pressure on Crewe at the wrong end of the Coca Coal Championship table.
In a recent interview with givemefootball John said that he still wanted to be part of the Rafa Benitez 'revolution' at Liverpool but was grateful to get the experience of playing regular first team football at Crewe as a means to that end.
John has already featured in the Liverpool first team and one of the stalwarts at Anfield, Jamie Carragher, was delighted to learn that John was doing so well at Crewe, and he says he isn't surprised at the youngster's progress.
Jamie said: "He's a very good player. He did very well for Liverpool last season in the three or four games he had on the spin and was probably man of the match in them. But me and Steve Finnan recovered from injury and Gerard Houllier maybe chose to go with us because we had that bit more experience and John seemed to get squeezed out a bit."
The versatile Carragher knows it's not much good for a young player to be playing reserve team football and points out the benefit of the time John is spending at Crewe. He added: "It's good for John to be playing Championship football rather than just playing in reserve team football and it can only stand him in good stead for the future."
Otsemabor scored his first goal for Crewe recently, against Leicester City, and that was a tribute to the attacking play which is such a part of the youngster's game, as Jamie Carragher, no slouch in coming forward himself, knows.
He says: "He's a great attacking full back, that's one of the strengths of his game and something he showed when he got in the Liverpool team. He was up and down that line and can whip some great balls in. He' s got great pace and he is a good footballer, very confident on the ball, things you would probably expect from a Liverpool player."
And while Crewe are currently reaping the benefits of John Otsemabor's good run of form neither he nor Liverpool are giving up on a future at Anfield, something Jamie Carragher is only to happy to endorse.
The England international says: "I'm sure John will get his chance again at Liverpool. I hope he does because I like to see as many local lads as possible getting a game."
One thing is for sure Liverpool, are sure to benefit from John's loan spell at Crewe and has as good a future in front of him as another Dario Gradi product who went on to great things after leaving Gresty Road for Anfield, Rob Jones.
I'm sure if John does half as well as 'Trigger', who went on to play for England, he and Liverpool will be more than happy.
