Ex-Chelsea ball boy Etheridge promises to use tricks of trade

Champions League games, Premier League deciders or even cup clashes like tonight's game against Walsall – no fixture was free from Jose Mourinho's antics.

Now set to face the Special One in Sadders' colours, Etheridge looks back with fondness on his time at Stamford Bridge.

But tonight any affection will be put to one side as he looks to help Walsall achieve one of their greatest ever cup shocks.

"I remember being a ball boy for the Chelsea first team and looking at every single game," Etheridge said.

"I got to see them play in the Champions League and I got to see them lift the Premier League for the first time which was an amazing experience.

"The 2004 team was an amazing side and then later in my career I got to play with players like Damien Duff – that was brilliant.

"The under-16s would always be ball boys for the big games because they could trust them a bit more than the others.

"It was a great experience."

Etheridge joined Chelsea just as the Roman Abramovich revolution was beginning in West London.

And the goalkeeper admits it was a hugely interesting time with the billionaire owner often taking a close look at how the club's young players were developing.

"He came down to the training ground at Cobham quite a lot to look at what he had invested his money in," Etheridge said.

"All the youngsters were there and he was a very nice guy.

"He would say hello to all the parents and thank them for coming which was nice.

"When you are that age you don't really understand the concept of how much money he's really got.

"It's when you're a bit older that you think, okay he's got a little bit about him.

"But it's fantastic for someone with that sort of money and power to come down to the training ground to look at young talent."

Etheridge revealed Abramovich wasted no time transforming the club.

"There were a lot of changes – you could tell he wanted to win the title and he wasn't going to take anything less," he said. "The style of the football we used to play at the academy used to be a 4-4-2.

"But Mourinho and Abramovich worked very closely and the academy played exactly like the first team did.

"It would be 4-3-3, the 21s would play it, the youth team would play it, everyone would play it. They wanted the one system."

Despite the vast majority being internationals, Etheridge revealed Chelsea's all-stars always had time for youngsters coming through.

"All the first team players had a lot of time for us," he said.

" John Terry used to pay for the scholars' driving licences and driving tests.

"They were big time players but we never really saw them that way – we actually saw them for their true colours when they had their training gear on.

"They were top professionals. Probably the closest I got to them was when I was training with the reserves and they would come back from injury but you could see the passion they had, even for just training with the reserves."

Etheridge opted to leave Stamford Bridge at 16-years-old to move across London to Fulham.

But despite seeing his own future elsewhere, the Philippines international still believes Chelsea's academy should be praised for the players it has brought through.

"In my age group and the year below and above there was Ryan Bertrand, Michael Mancienne, Scott Sinclair and Jack Cork," Etheridge said.

"A big thing for me is that even though a lot of them haven't made it at Chelsea, they have made very good careers for themselves.

"I think that is a massive credit to the club. To really believe you are going to go into the first team at that club, you have to have a massive self-belief.

"Those bunch of players that were able to make it and have had very good careers so far – okay it's not at Chelsea but they are the champions of the Premier League."

Turning his attentions to tonight's games, Etheridge believes Walsall can pull off a cup shock.

"They are just 11 players in different coloured shirts," he said.

"They have got a lot of talent and a fantastic manager but they won't want to come to Walsall on a Wednesday night that's for sure. It's who performs better on the day."

And if Walsall are winning, Etheridge will be sure to call on some of the ball boy skills he learned in London.

"I might take a yellow card and boot the ball in the stands!

"That's the sort of thing we actually did learn, subtle things like that, to take your time so I might be giving the ball boys hand gestures to keep the ball.

"When you grow up as a ball boy those are the things you understand."