Three games into his debut season, Steve Fleming was the worst coach in the history of the Caversham football club.
How things have changed.
Fleming (47) reflected on a humbling start to his career this week as he prepared his powerhouse side for another tilt at the Chatham Cup, which has been his and his club's holy grail for a long time.
Caversham has been so dominant in recent years - it has ruled southern football with an iron fist for most of the last decade - it is easy to forget it was deep in a rut in the late-1990s.
But Fleming remembers it well.
"It was strange how it happened. We lost our first three games of the season in 1999, my first year as a player-coach," he said.
"And it was an important year because Soccer New Zealand said the top three clubs in the South Island would go into the national league.
"We went on and won 10 in a row. But we finished fourth."
That was the beginning of a long and tortuous bid to get Caversham into one of the many versions of the national league.
The club eventually got there, but only had a year before the new summer league was developed.
For Fleming, success has had to be measured by local dominance.
And from those uncertain beginnings, he has been the driving force behind his club's extraordinary rise.
Only Roslyn-Wakari, in 2003, has managed to interrupt a sequence of nine Caversham titles.
Fleming said there was no simple formula behind the club's sustained run of success.
"We introduce new players, we bring in some quality imports, we have a bit of luck and we're well prepared.
That's about it.
"We've been fortunate to have the best of the young kids who live in Dunedin. There's no doubt about that.
"I've got good contacts around New Zealand, which has enabled me to get some players. We had four good kids come down from Wellington 10 years ago. Then a few years after that we got four good young kids from Christchurch."
Fleming makes no apologies for bringing in overseas players, normally from England or Scotland, to bolster the ranks.
"I've never gone to another local club to approach a player.
There are too many teams in Dunedin and I don't think the competition is strong enough to be taking players from other clubs.
"We've had some real stars playing for us over the last 10 years. Guys like Frank Hegarty and Andy Essler were very well thought of. Clubs around New Zealand were chasing them, and we were able to get them.
"You know you're doing something right when an Auckland club like Waitakere is calling you and trying to get one of your players."
The problem with importing players at club level is that you build a reputation as a mini-Chelsea, that other clubs start to think you are sitting on a war chest of funds and you are effectively buying success.
Fleming has heard it all.
He acknowledges Caversham pays some of its players - small amounts, he claims - to run coaching sessions for juniors.
But he says Caversham still faces the same running costs as other clubs and still has to work hard to find funding.
He accepts any club that has a long winning spell will eventually start to be resented.
"Oh, for sure. Nobody likes to finish second all the time.
"But we don't train or play to come second. Our players work harder than most. And they have to live by my rules. If they don't train, they don't play. If they don't play well, they don't play. If they misbehave, they don't play."
The Fleming name is synonymous with Caversham.
Fleming's father, Bill, has been linked with the club for 50 years, including a period as coach in the 1970s.
Steve is now the man in charge and brother Rodney guides the second team - another brother, Malcolm, is the Green Island and Otago United coach - while Steve's son, Patrick, is a key player.
Steve Fleming actually played for Roslyn-Wakari as a junior, and got his first coaching job with Roslyn in 1995-96.
"We had some success but I felt like I was stroking egos a lot of the time. I went home some nights and felt sick. I decided I really didn't like telling people something when I didn't mean it.
"That's when I changed as a coach. It became a case of, right, this is it, like it or go play for someone else."
Now Fleming says he enjoys watching young players develop, and he enjoys coaching in tandem with Andy Deeley, another influential part of the Caversham dynasty.
Fleming is an Arsenal fan and he had the great thrill a few years back of spending a week at the club, picking up some tips from French manager Arsene Wenger.
He has also "taken a little bit" from former All Whites managers Barrie Truman and Ken Dugdale, as well as his father.
And while Fleming used to be as fiery as any coach, he now knows when to pick his battles.
"I've certainly mellowed a little bit. I used to show players the door a lot more easily, because my ego was probably much bigger.
"I still get upset but I just don't want to embarrass my players in front of anyone else. If I've got something to say, I say it in the dressing room or at practice."
Fleming still has firm views.
He thinks there should be fewer premier teams in Dunedin, he wants a proper South Island league reinstated and he thinks the national league should return to the winter.
He said he was asked to apply for the Otago United job but "didn't like the set-up and the structures they had in place.
Some of the same people are there who I don't think are there for the right reasons."
Fleming applied, unsuccessfully, for the Canterbury job twice.
He has previously coached Otago in the pre-United days, and coached various national age-group sides.
Now, he feels the coaching clock ticking.
"I do see myself finishing shortly. There aren't many challenges left for me to tick off.
"Caversham have got some good young coaches and I don't want to stand in their way."
So could this be his last season?
"Yes."
There is, of course, one major challenge left for Fleming.
Caversham has never won the Chatham Cup - never even made the final - and he is desperate to beat Bay Olympic in Saturday's semifinal in Dunedin.
"It means a lot to the club. And I'm very driven by the opportunity of being the first Caversham coach to reach the final.
"It's the pinnacle of the winter competition. It's an opportunity to play good teams and better yourself. This is where coaches and players really get to test themselves, and you have to get excited about it.
"But it's important you don't get carried away. You've got to turn up and play well."
Fleming, a butcher by trade, now works as a labourer for Hawkins Construction.
He's been on site at the new stadium since day one, watching the structure rise from a patch of cleared land.
