On the day Everton would reveal the designs for their impressive new stadium, we caught up with the level-headed Yorkshireman to find out just how far his own ambition extends, and how he’s gone from bossing Saturday football camps in Sheffield as an eight-year-old to playing up front for the Toffees as a Premier League star.

Looking back to your younger years, what kind of kid were you when it comes to football? Were you obsessed with the game?

Yeah. Everything that I did as a young kid revolved around football. Going to school, playing football in school, and then going straight to football training. If I didn’t have training I’d go and play on the street with my mates. For as long as I can remember. I think I first signed for a team when I was about seven, and since then just loved playing football.

That would have been in Sheffield, of course. Can you remember the moment when you first signed for Sheffield United as a youngster?

I was about eight years old when I first signed for Sheff U. I was actually training with Sheffield Wednesday and Sheffield United at the same time, but I was a Sheffield United fan so I always knew where I wanted to go. I went to a little Saturday camp, and there was a main team, and then there were kids that could just go along, and I was in that group. I remember the coach from the main team at the time, Scott Sellars, walked over and said: “Are you Dominic Calvert-Lewin?” And I just looked at him and was like “Yeah”. He went: “Come with me.” I walked over to the main team and that was that! He must have already known who I was.

It’s funny when you look back on memories like that from your childhood. A little you running around scoring loads of goals...

It is strange. At the time, I used to get really nervous playing football. I used to get crazy butterflies when I was younger. As you get older, you get less and less as you get more experienced, although obviously for the big games you still get a little bit of nerves. But I remember my team from U9s to U15s stayed relatively the same, we’d all played together for a long time, so I was playing with my mates really. And yeah, I remember scoring a fair few. And running the full length of the pitch and slide tackling people, things like that. It was a fun time.

Can you remember having expectations when you were little? Thinking you were going to go on and play in the Premier League?

I think as a young kid, first of all, you wanted to be in an academy. You knew that you were on the right path if you were there. So for me to get into the academy at the first age group possible was great, and then I stayed in all the way through. My life revolved around Sheffield United academy. So if it wasn’t my mum taking me to training it’d be my dad, my nan, my auntie, my grandad. Everyone would chip in and take me to training when they could. And it went from two nights a week to three nights a week to four nights a week. And then you have to sacrifice a little bit with your school friends, and as you get to your middle teenage years, some of the stuff they get up to – I had to sacrifice a lot. But then it wasn’t really sacrifice because I was doing what I loved and I still am now.