Emma Hayes with another trophy [Getty Images for The FA]

CHELSEA boss Emma Hayes dreamt of playing in cup ties as she kicked a ball around the Curnock Street estate in Camden Town as a kid.

On Sunday, the former Parliament Hill School pupil will lead her team out in the biggest of them all, the Champions League final.

Hayes, who set up football programmes and after-school sessions for children in West Euston and the Bourne estate as a young coach more than two decades ago, picked up her fourth Women’s Super League winner’s medal last weekend.

It was her 10th major title in nine years with the Blues and the 44-year-old is now gearing up to break new ground after becoming the first Englishwoman to take a team to the European final.

Those achievements have not been lost on some of the footballers who played under her in their teens. Fellow former “Parli” pupils Jemma Turner and Karleigh Healey were both coached by Hayes as children and stood alongside her for a photo for the New Journal 20 years ago.

Jemma, who went on to play for QPR and Brighton and appeared in Bend It Like Beckham, fondly recalls playing under Emma on the pitch in Camden Street, just across the road from her home at the time.

Emma Hayes, circled, as a young coach 20 years ago and Jenna Turner (front row far left) and Karleigh Healey (back row far right). Photo: Catherine Etoe

“Emma always stood out,” the 36-year-old carpenter told the New Journal. “It was her knowledge of football and she’d look at you as a player and help you improve. She just cared.”

District nurse Karleigh, who grew up on the Regent’s Park estate, was 15 back then and remembers looking up to Hayes and her fellow coach, Arsenal Ladies’ great, Kirsty Pealling.

“Both Emma and Kirsty were inspirational and very much like, ‘If that’s what you want to do, then you do it’,” she said. “Nothing was ever too much. They clearly wanted to give back to the community.”

Speaking to the New Journal ahead of Sunday night’s tie with Spanish giants Barcelona in Gothenburg – which is free to air on BT Sport – Hayes spoke of her hopes for the women’s game in the wake of Chelsea’s unprecedented cup run.

“That’s what I’ve worked hard for, to play my part in making sure we tell the story of women’s football, for it to be front and centre,” she said. “And if that ends up being the case after Sunday, regardless of the result, we’ve already won.”

Kirsty Pealling, who runs Camden Youth FC and continues to introduce girls to football in her sports development work for Camden Council, believes her best friend and Chelsea will inspire a new generation.

“It’s only going to benefit women’s football and hopefully get more girls engaged in it,” she said. “I’ll be encouraging my players and their parents to watch it because it’s a massive occasion.”

Meanwhile, Karleigh, who went on to make headlines of her own in the New Journal as a Camden Town FC goal-getter, would love to see her old coach take Spurs men in hand one day.

“I was watching Emma in an interview the other day,” she said. “All I kept thinking was, ‘You need to go to a men’s team next. Tottenham are in desperate need of someone as fantastic as you’.”