The passion burns brightly as John Still talks about people making the most of their careers.

Maidstone head of football Still has helped numerous players go on to bigger things over the years.

There's the likes of Andre Gray, who worked under the veteran manager at Luton and last weekend scored the winner for Watford against Leicester in the Premier League.

Dwight Gayle, his old striker at Dagenham, played in the top flight for Crystal Palace and Newcastle and is still banging in the goals for Championship club West Brom.

Matt Ritchie, a player going nowhere at Portsmouth before a loan spell with the Daggers, is now in the Premier League with Newcastle and a Scotland international.

Throw in Craig Mackail-Smith, who earned a big-money move to Brighton, Jack Marriott, now at Derby, and the list goes on.

Still, the only man to win the Conference three times, knows what he's talking about, and it drives him mad when players let their careers pass them by.

It's an issue he faces at Maidstone where an under-performing squad are 13 points from safety in the National League and looking doomed.

"This is their career, not mine," says Still. "You're a professional footballer and as quickly as you go up, you can go down.

"So let's take, hypothetically, Andre Gray.

"He was playing at Luton in the Conference, he's in the Premier League now four years on. So that's how quick it can happen.

"When I went there was he the finished article? No. He didn't play the first 10 games, he couldn't quite pick it up.

"But he did pick it up eventually and I say to players, 'listen, when you go out and play you have to treat it like the other team is robbing your house.

"Would you let them rob your house?

"Would you open the door and let them come in and rob you or would you fight for everything you've got?

"What you could be doing, you could be playing in Div 2, Div 1, Championship, Prem, you could, or are you going to let people come in and take that away from you?

"I'd fight for my life for that because you're playing for you, you're playing for your wife or girlfriend or your children to give them a great future.

"If you’ve got the ability, everything, to play in the Premier League, play in the Premier League, don’t play in the First Division.

"You’ve got to make the most of what you’ve got or are you just going to let your career go away in front of you without fighting?

"You haven’t got to be a great player to fight.

"If your ability only allows you to get to a certain level, there’s nothing wrong with that.

"But if your ability and your attitude allows you to get higher, do it.

"What I feel is too many players are letting it go past them and they will be the ‘if only’ group.

"When they’re in the pub in 15 years’ time, it’ll be ‘if only I worked harder, I’d doing this…’

"I don’t understand people that don’t fight for themselves, for their wives, for their children.

"I’ve had terrific footballers who’ve won nothing and I’ve had people half as good who won everything.

"Matt Ritchie is one I took from Portsmouth when Harry Redknapp was there.

"He wasn't the best player, honestly he wasn't, but he did unbelievably for me and now he plays for Newcastle and Scotland.

"He was a baby, 18 or 19, but he never stopped working, never stopped running, he used to run back and tackle and he plays wing-back now.

"It amazes me that not all players do that and this group that we have here, only they know.

"I always say you can fool yourself sometimes as well.

“You can believe you’re doing it but I always say, when you’re on your own, go into a room, close the curtains, turn the lights off and ask yourself a question: ‘Am I doing everything I can?’ You’ll know the answer. You'll know."

Still has had his scouting network in place for more than 30 years, taking them to every club he's worked at.

They're out searching for fresh talent to take Maidstone forward as Still rebuilds his squad.

He said: "I'm under no illusions of the changes I think need to be made to get the club back on the ladder.

"The club's rise has been incredible but I also think this struggle was always going to happen somewhere.

"We aren't Salford, so it has to be grown and built, so with that in mind, when you do hit a brick wall and the players have done everything they can or have taken the club as far as it can go, it has to be grown again.

“I think we can find the components that are needed to stabilise the club and take it forward again.

"That's what I think but it can't be a quick fix because there's not the resources and sometimes in my experience, I've seen it happen, quick fixes can be false economy because that's what they are and there's no longevity.

"I've always thought we have to do it another way because if you do it right you can improve your team but you also find players you can sell and the money can be reinvested into the football club, which is basically what I've done for most of my career.

"I do push for younger, energetic, ambitious players because I think the crowd respond to them as well and this is the route this club has to take.

“But it's not going to be a quick fix, it can't be.

"I put players in three categories: players that can, players that can't and players that don't know if they can.

"With the ones that don't know, it's normally their mentality.

"They've got the ingredients but can they be a winner? Winners are different to good players.

"You haven't got to be a good player to be a winner.

"I've had lots of players that are decent players, not great players, but put them in your team and they know how to win and that's the category you have to find.

"Supporters see everything on a Saturday and a Tuesday.

"I see everything all week, people's body language in training, and I can make my mind up on body language.

“I travelled two-and-a-half hours to watch a player once and left after the warm-up and went local to another game in the Midlands.

“I left because I knew he wasn't going to be for me.

"I'm not saying I'm always right but I made my mind up on someone's body language, not warming up properly, not professional in what he did.

“The player I did take ended up a good player and I never heard of the other one again."