It takes some longer than others to find their true calling in life.

Take Ronald Reagan, the revered US actor who had to wait until the plooky young age of 55 before he was first elected into office as Governor of California before becoming President.

Then there's Alan Rickman, who was well into his forties before he landed his first movie role in Die Hard.

Even Colonel Sanders was a regular around the bingo halls of Kentucky before he clapped eyes on his first chicken drumstick at the age of 62.

However, some men are destined for a higher purpose from an early age, even if it's not abundantly clear to most.

For the Celtic team of the late 1990s, few could have predicted so many who wore the green and white stripes would go on to earn them as some of the most promising young managers in the game today.

Back when the Millennium Bug was the talk of the steamie, it's now clear the coaching bug was rife at Barrowfield.

In the space of just a couple of seasons, Celtic players such as Paul Lambert, Malky Mackay, Alan Stubbs, Neil Lennon and Jackie McNamara all plied their trade as players in Glasgow's east end, at least a decade before most of them would be recognised for their tactical genius.

However, to Jonathan Gould, the future of this group of talented young players seemed destined for the dug out.

The goalkeeper, who is out in New Zealand with Wellington Phoenix as a goalie coach, knew at the time he was in a team filled with conscientious and ambitious professionals.

But, more importantly, he knew he was in the company of leaders among men.

"You can look back to the team I played in here and a lot of them have gone on to coaching," said Gould, who won two Scotland caps during his career.

"I think when you are a good leader on the park you will usually transcend into coaching.

"Guys like Jackie McNamara, Stubbsy, Malky Mackay, Neil Lennon, Paul Lambert, I'm not surprised they've gone on to big things and you look back to when they played and you can see why.

"Sometimes you need a leader on the pitch, but you actually need 11 of them if you are going to be successful.

"That's the case with those guys. We used to coach each other through the game."

Lennon's success as a manager is, of course, well known to those frequenting Parkhead as the Northern Irishman won three league titles and two Scottish Cups during his four-year tenure.

McNamara enjoyed a positive spell in charge of Partick Thistle - with ex-Hoops ace Simon Donnelly as his No.2 - before he moved to Tayside for Dundee United.

Stubbs earned his corn as a coach at Everton before landing the Hibs job in the summer, while Mackay and Lambert have both managed at the very top level in England, with the latter the current boss of Aston Villa.

It all goes to show the different paths the former team-mates have taken, and Gould reckons this reflects the varying styles and personalities of the group.

"There are different kinds of coach," he said. "I remember Stubbsy was an orchestrator from the back and was quite tactical, so was Paul.

"Jackie wasn't probably as much but he's turned into one of the most thoughtful coaches in the game.

"They are all very different. We are a different generation of football coaches.

"The game went through a lot of changes in the late 90s into the 2000s and I think some of that was down to money that was earned.

"A lot of top players as a result don't need the game now, which means you are left with guys who want the game going into coaching because they love it.

"You can see that with the way some coaches handle themselves."

Gould considers himself one of them. The 46-year-old has spent around 10 years on the other side of the world gaining experience and getting a feel for what it takes to be a successful coach in the game, with him most recently working under Edinburgh-born manager Eddie Merrick.

The former Preston keeper admits though that his time in New Zealand is soon coming to an end as he seeks to emulate achievements of his former team-mates. Gould cuts an articulate and knowledgeable figure, and one who has not limited himself to merely working with shot-stoppers.

And, like Lambert & Co, he believes his calling as a coach is something which was evident when he was pulling off saves for the Celtic 15 years ago.

"Yeah I probably felt I was a coach when I was a player," he said. "I used to tell a few managers the same thing!

"I was very opinionated and very much an on-field coach.

"I probably talked as much as any goalkeeper because that was probably the way I was going to manage to stop the ball coming anywhere near me."

He added: "I'm thinking of coming back at some point in the near future and maybe coaching in the UK. I've been there for almost 10 years and the family have got to a certain age and have started migrating this way.

"I only went to watch Cheltenham against Oxford the other week, but it was a real good game of football and that was League Two.

"You realise there is an element of the game that's here that isn't on the other side of the world.

"I've done both goalkeeping and regular coaching and carried on my education on that side of the world.

"I've enjoyed being both, although it's slightly different over there as the staff levels are quite thin.

"There's a head coach, an assistant coach and a goalkeeping coach, and they even structure the course so the goalie coach coaches outfield players as they don't have huge resources.

"I think I've probably got a few strings to my bow."