Colin Clarke is certainly not your average retired footballer.

Since hanging up his boots after 13 seasons leading the line at eight English clubs, Clarke has embarked on a varied coaching career from Richmond to San Diego, Dallas to Virginia.

His latest assignment has required him to pack his well-worn travel bags and start a new life in the Caribbean as part of his remit to resurrect Puerto Rico's national team programme.

As head coach of the country's only franchise Puerto Rico Islanders, in the USL-D1, the former Northern Ireland international was the obvious candidate to oversee their World Cup qualifying campaign, which starts against Dominican Republic next month.

After taking over Islanders last year in the midst of their worst ever season, Clarke reversed their flagging fortunes and steered them all the way to the play-off semi-finals where they crashed out on penalties.

"You'd have to speak to the president to see if that's why he appointed me," says Clarke when asked about the link between his twin coaching roles.

"I can't answer that, but it would seem to make sense. Obviously I'd only been in Puerto Rico for about seven months, but I knew quite a few of the local boys and that's helped me form my national team.

"The Islanders are the only pro-team in town and we need to be seen to be supplying players to the national team.

"There's about four or five national team players playing for the Islanders and that's helped quite a bit. I knew what to expect from them and they knew what to expect from me. Some of the other guys I've worked with before so there's familiarity there."

Joining Clarke in masterminding the future of Puerto Rican football is seasoned English professional Adrian Whitbread.

It's unlikely that at the time Whitbread followed Martin "Mad Dog" Allen to Leicester City last summer as part of his backroom staff, he'd have foreseen himself working in Puerto Rico by the turn of the year.

When Clarke heard the no-nonsense defender, whose clubs include Portsmouth and West Ham, was available he moved swiftly to bring him to the Caribbean.

"Adrian came over two weeks ago at the start of this programme," says Clarke. "He came highly recommended and has a great reputation back home. I knew of him from my playing days but had never worked with him.

"I watched from afar when he was working at Brentford with Martin (Allen) and then briefly at Leicester and I was delighted when I heard he was available."

Puerto Rico's 2-0 victory over Bermuda was the duo's first in charge and Clarke admits he was delighted with his young team's showing at the National Sports Centre.

"We were pretty pleased as we've only been together for about ten days or so.

"The trip has been a step into the unknown for us, as we didn't know how we were going to perform and we didn't know much about Bermuda.

"They had their chance in the first-half and if it goes in who knows what would have happened?

"The second-half saw us dominant and we had the wind to assist us. We knew we had done the hard part at half-time.

"We played some good combinations and finished off with two great goals.

"We dominated the midfield and if the ball was there to be won we went out and won it. It was a good positive result and we will look to build on that."

From his senior debut at Peterborough to his World Cup adventure in 1986 with Northern Ireland, Clarke's playing career was certainly eventful. It seems as though his coaching one is following suit.

"When I retired I didn't really know what I was going to do and did a few other things first," he adds.

"I've been around and had some great experiences and opportunities and it's nice to travel around and go to different places. With this job you just never know what's around the corner."