Dennis Zuill never lost hope of turning his life around through football and is using his personal struggles to help inspire at-risk youngsters as part his coaching role in England.

Zuill has been a senior coach for Sky Blues in the Community — the charity arm of Sky Bet League One side Coventry City — since 2016, working on several rewarding projects, often in disadvantaged and underrepresented areas of the West Midlands city.

Having experienced the highs of playing for Bermuda as a no-nonsense defender to the lows of serving time in prison for drug offences. it is a position for which Zuill is arguably well suited.

After all, the 41-year-old knows only too well about the pitfalls of heading down the wrong path and is a firm believer that everyone has the capacity to change and that nobody is a lost cause.

It was in September 2009 when Zuill was arrested in Atlanta for his involvement in drug trafficking.

He was held on remand until June 2010 when he pleaded guilty to one charge of conspiring to distribute cannabis and two charges of conspiring to distribute cocaine before being sentenced to “time served” by a New York judge, and was released from jail three months later.

Zuill, who was playing for the Bermuda Hogges at the semi-professional level at the time, says he has no choice but to take the darkest moment of his life and “make it bright”.

He says: “When you find yourself in the situations I’ve that I’ve endured, which are probably the darkest and down you can ever be, you have to find some positive energy and use that to move upwards.

“That’s as dark as you can go in life and you just have turn the light on and push on. As long as you have life, you have time to change, and everyone in the world is capable of accomplishing something; I really believe that.

“Sometimes you have to change company, change area codes and sometimes you have to change the country you live in.”

When Zuill returned home after his serving his sentence, he was immediately reintegrated into the Dandy Town ranks and says he is indebted to several key figures at his boyhood club.

“I can’t thank Dandy Town enough for how they backed me when I returned to the island,” says Zuill, who served as assistant coach to Jomar Wilkinson and coached the club’s Player Development League side.

“While I was serving time, I stayed in touch with people at Town. I can’t thank Jim Baxter enough. He went around my momma’s and said, ‘When that boy gets off that plane send him to Dandy Town’. Guys like Devarr, Jomar, Stephen Lewis and Baxter really pushed me and helped lead me to where I am now.”

Zuill, who made five appearances for Bermuda from 2006 to 2007, quickly immersed himself in coaching and completed his Uefa C Licence on the island before moving to England in 2015 to pursue greater opportunities.

It was while taking his FA Level Two coaching badge that his knowledge of the game and communication skills caught the eye of the assessor David Busst, a former Coventry defender and the director of Sky Blues in the Community, who proceeded to offer him a job.

“I did my C Licence with the Bermuda Football Coaches Association but wasn’t selected to go to Scotland to take the B Licence and was a little disappointed,” Zuill says.

“I thought, ‘Well, there’s nothing else I can do in Bermuda’. Me and Jomar had won every trophy multiple times with Dandy Town and my two sons were at the right age to move. I thought I’d make the journey to the UK and try and find as work as a chef while seeking my coaching badges.”

Before he could begin his post at Sky Blues in the Community, Zuill was required to explain his chequered past to the English Football Association and says he is grateful for the all the support he has received from his employers.

“I think [Sky Blues in the Community] want more people like me who have shown they can take a negative and turn it into a positive,” say Zuill, who is taking his Uefa B Licence.

“They send me into the rougher areas of Coventry and I back myself to relate to the children and make a difference. It’s brilliant the way they have supported me.

“I work on several other projects: I coach our under-16 team in the Player Development Centre, a pathway to the Coventry City Academy, and our Premier League Kicks team, which plays in the Coventry Alliance League. I also coach our under-7s elite one squad, a level under the Coventry Academy, and work on inclusion projects like toddler groups, walking football, coaching at disability schools and put on free sessions for children who can’t afford coaching.”

As head of recruitment, Zuill also visits Coventry primary schools looking to discover “hidden gems” waiting to be unearthed.

“I’ve just completed a six-week programme called a Talent ID, Zuill says. “I went into five different school from P1 to P6 [four to ten-year-olds]. We select the best children and put them into a showcase game.

“All of the Premier League sides have community teams attached to them. Coventry have first refusal on the players, but we’ve had players go to clubs such as Walsall, Birmingham City and Aston Villa.”

Football, Zuill admits, completely consumes his life and says he would not have it any other way.

When not volunteering as the under-17 coach for local side St Finbarrs, he mentors several young Bermudians playing in the area such as Tahje Smith, Edry Moore, Daeshierry Zuill-Raynor, his eldest son, and Jakeem Jennings, the son of former Bermuda midfielder Keith Jennings.

He still closely follows the Bermudian game and will be travelling to Costa Rica and the United States to support the Bermuda national team during their historic Concacaf Gold Cup campaign.

“I have to take my hat off to Kyle Lightbourne,” Zuill says. “He was my national team coach and he’s always believed Bermuda deserves to be at the top end of Concacaf football. His winning mentality is just oozing through the boys. As Clyde Best said the other day [in an interview with The Royal Gazette], to have 80 per cent of your starting XI playing at a professional or semi-professional level — well, we can only get better.

“I also have to praise Shaun Goater and Paul Scope, who, along with Kyle, brought professionalism to the island with the Bermuda Hogges [who played in the United Soccer League, now called the USL Championship, from 2007 to 2012].

“It was one of the best things that could have happened at that time. The Hogges showed a picture that Bermuda football could have professionalism.

“I think it really helped push on the likes of Nahki Wells and Danté Leverock who are now making a career out of it.”

For now, Zuill is impassioned about his role as a community coach, particularly working with underprivileged children as part of the Premier League Kicks programme. He does, however, harbour hopes of coaching at a higher level.

“My options are very open,” Zuill said. “I’m getting my Uefa B Licence so I can tutor other coaches and hopefully progress in academies. I’m looking to get into that arena of National League, League One, League Two.

“I’m looking to really knuckle down over the next five years and see where I can go. Right now, though, I’m really enjoying the development and community side.”