JACK ROSS, manager of Alloa Athletic the unlikely success story of the Scottish football season so far, has one slight grumble.

“I have a Wikipedia page, I have no idea who does it, but the guy who writes it doesn’t like me because he’s got on it the most negative things of my career.”

Both of us laugh, not only about the manager of Alloa having his profile written up by an anonymous party, but that someone should take time to highlight the bad, and he’s had his troubles, when there is so much good happening right now.

Ross greets me on roasting hot day at what is still called Recreation Park by most and in terms of the football club the sun has been shining over this part of Clackmannanshire for some weeks now.

Seven wins out of seven is the record so far, including Betfred Cup victories over Premiership side Inverness Caledonian Thistle and Raith Rovers of the Championship. Some 21 goals have been scored as well. These Wasps are top of League One have a real sting in their tails.

“Alloa are the best part-time club in Scotland,” is what more than one well known figure in the game has told me. A visit backs this up.

On the walls of the corridors, recently painted with the help of supporters, are motivational signs, an idea from the manager, the pitch, rightly derided last season, remains plastic but is now actually playable.

Pat the kitman, a Celtic fan by birth who is counting the seconds until the upcoming cup tie at Parkhead, has dedicated his life to the club and makes sure training and playing kits are laid out for the players before they get in.

Hot meals are provided after training and there are even smoothies, yes smoothies, full of healthy goodness.

But there must be more to the resurrection at Recreation than a few buzz words, some liquidised bananas and a lick of paint.

“A few things have happened,” said Ross. “We were actually good in the second half of last season, even if results didn’t always reflect that, but we finished five unbeaten which included a win against Hibs and a draw at Ibrox.

“Although we were relegated, there was some excitement around the club about a different challenge after a few years in the Championship where we were fighting fires.

“The new pitch helped me recruit. I also leaned heavily on the reputation that this is a club which looks after part-time players well. I pestered the ones I wanted to sign and those I wanted to keep but had offers to go back to the Championship.

“From the first day of pre-season you could sense it was a good group.It’s all about the players. As a manager you can have ideas, I don't like the word philosophy, and if the players don’t buy into it then you’re goosed.”

Ross, now 40, always wanted to be a manager, not a coach. As captain at many of his clubs, he felt his ability to actually talk to people would help him be the gaffer. A coaching role at Dumbarton was a surprise in that he enjoyed that side far more than he thought he would.

And that led to a job working with the Hearts under-20s, a job that ended abruptly last December with the sack.

Ross admitted: “I thought long and hard about not staying in the game. I am getting older with a wife and two daughters, and you can become a bit selfish. I began thinking about perusing my own individual dream all the time.

“But likewise it has earned me a living for the past 20 years and it does suck you back in. Timing is everything. If the opportunity had not come up at Alloa then I don’t know what I would do. I was looking at other options – going and getting a real job!”

As a player, Ross would never claim to have been at the level of Rio Ferdinand; however, he was a good centre-half and you felt when watching him at Clyde, Falkirk and St Mirren – there was an ill-fated season in England with Hartlepool which we’ll get to - he could have played at a higher level.

“The harshest way to judge my career is this,” said Ross. “When I was a kid I wanted to play for the biggest clubs in Scotland and England, and also my country. So I can’t help but think I failed. When you get a bit older and take a step back, I look at what I achieved and take a bit more satisfaction in it.

“One regret I have is I wasn’t mentally stronger when I was younger. I didn’t develop a mental toughness until my early twenties which enabled me to get back to senior football from the juniors.

“I lacked a belief in my own abilities. I didn’t have a skin thick enough to take bad performances and not doubt I was good enough to play at a certain level. I was a chronic over-thinker and still am. I would go think and think and think about the games just been and the ones coming up.

“I played at Camelon (for four seasons) and for six months I was a sub. But all of a sudden I felt different and got a move to Clyde which was great for me. When I look back on the road I had to take, I did all-right.”

His one experience down south, the supposed big break at Hartlepool under Neale Cooper, the former Aberdeen player, was a real low point.

Ross admitted: “I really enjoyed the football, I played 30 games, we got to the Championship play-off final and I honestly did well on the park. But I made mistakes.

“I had three months to find accommodation and went on holiday which meant I didn’t spend enough time looking for somewhere to live. Heather and I ended up in a place which didn’t suit us. She was in Glasgow, I was down there, we were due to get married, and I couldn’t adjust to the travelling. I learned a lot from it, don’t get me wrong.”

Ross is cleverer that most. Articulate and decent, his trick, if you could call it that, is he remembers what it was like to be a player, to be dropped, to be out injured. The best managers tend to have these traits.

He knows football can be tough. Released by Dundee as a teenager “I woke up the next day wondering what I was going to” meant he had to use the Highers he earned at school and got a MA Honours degree from Heriot-Watt University in Economics.

As Ross himself said: “I was there for four years, didn’t want to do it, have hardly used it and don’t know economics!”

He does seem to know something about football and it will be interesting to see where Ross and Alloa go and if they go together.

“My ambition, and this may sound romantic, it is to do the job I have right now to my very best;” he says. “I actually don’t have any plan. I love my job, I want to work for the people who have been very good to me. Then we’ll see where it takes us.”

That Wikipedia lad had better start writing some good stuff. Ross is one young manager worth watching.