Gillingham defender Remeao Hutton has made the most of the setbacks in his career.

Hutton is League 2’s top crosser of the ball this season and provided more assists than any other defender last season - but he’s worked hard on making an impact.

As a teenager at Birmingham, he spent seven months out injured with a broken foot and spent his time trawling the Wyscout video library of football matches to learn what he could. He perfected his crossing skills while on loan at Stevenage after being left out of the team.

“I like to make a point when I am not in the team,” he said, when asked about his crossing ability.

“I had to work on it. When I was at Stevenage I was in and out of the team. I was outside practising doing my extras and where the pitch was the manager (Alex Revell) had to drive past. I used to stay outside until he went home so he would see me every day.

“I was crossing for manikins. There were coaches who would help me for a bit, but they would go in when it got dark, and I would stay out with the yellow balls!

“When I had an injury at Birmingham, I broke my foot and I was out for seven months and that is when I said to myself, ‘how can I improve?’ I was watching games on Wyscout and I was just doing the most gym I could do, so that I was better when I got back.

“Even if you are left out, there are things you can do to make sure that when you are in the team you can do that in the team, that was my thing, I was just crossing, crossing and crossing and then last season I got a lot of assists, that is what I am known for.”

Hutton started out as a youth player at Walsall but played non-league football after that before being picked up by Birmingham.

“You do have to work hard no matter how many setbacks you have,” he said.

“I have seen it go a different way for loads of people.”

“You see a lot of people drop out and never get back to that level, but you just have to work harder than everyone else I guess. I signed for Birmingham when I was 18, went on a few loans and here I am now.”

Hutton joined the Gills in January. Head coach Stephen Clemence pointed to a lack of crosses into the box as one of the reasons the team weren’t scoring goals when he was interviewed for the vacant manager’s job back in October, so the 25-year-old was a valued addition.

With an average of 2.8 crosses per match, nobody else in League 2 delivers more balls into the box from out wide. The next best in the division is Hutton’s team-mate Connor Mahoney, with 2.3.

Hutton admits it’s still work in progress.

He said: “It is just getting used to them getting used to how I deliver the balls, or when I am going to deliver the ball, and I have to get used to what runs they are going to be making. It is about getting to know each other and it takes a while to settle in.

“At the start, it was a bit difficult (playing on the right side with Mahoney). I felt like we got in each other’s way a bit, but the more I play with him the better it gets, so I hope we get hold of him in the summer and we can build on that relationship.”

Hutton was speaking last Thursday in his first appearance in front of the press since signing from Swindon. It was a switch that was soured by an embarrassing initiation video that went viral.

The defender has got his head down since that, trying to let his football do the talking. First impressions are important and weren’t great for Hutton but he comes across as someone who just wants to do his best for the team.

“I just focus on the football really,” he said, clearly wanting to forget that embarrassing episode when asked about it. “That is what I am here to do, that is what I was brought in to do and that’s what we get paid for, I just want to play football.”

There was another incident that he’d prefer to forget as he and fellow defender Conor Masterson had a disagreement at Barrow, squaring up on the pitch and both receiving a yellow card following the confrontation.

“It is just frustration,” he said. “We were losing at that point, nobody likes to lose. We just want to win and get promoted and everyone wants to achieve the same thing, that’s all it was.”

Hutton says they’re a close-knit bunch.

He said: “We are a tight group and I haven’t seen many groups that get along like us, obviously we fall out and stuff, but I think it shows how close we are when we played Wrexham here and Stockport and Barrow, we just need something, there is something missing but I feel we can find that, next season I think we will do it.”

Joining a team with a chance of promotion was one of the key reasons he joined - along with linking up with former team-mate Jonny Williams again.

He said: “I knew Jonny Williams and Connor Mahoney from Birmingham (when signing).

“I spoke to Jonny before coming here and he was a factor in me coming.

“Jonny said what a good club it is. I knew he was coming here before at the start of the season and he was like, ‘you should come as well’, but they didn’t come in (last summer) and then when they did come in it was the first (club) I called.

“Brad (Galinson, the chairman) and (director Paul) Scally spoke to me about not wanting to be in this league for very long, they want to invest and push the team forward and the club forward and you can see that with the things they’re doing.

“I just want to be a part of that and hopefully we can get promoted.

“We don’t want to be in this league, we’re not a team that should be in this league, the ambitions are clear and we are all buying into it and hopefully, we can get that soon.”