A BUDDING football coach is loving his season-long internship with a top SPFL club.

Aaron Waugh, from Ormiston, has coached a number of teams locally but is now benefiting from a link-up with Dundee United.

Having turned out for Tranent Colts and Edina Hibs as a youngster, Waugh gave up playing and focused his attention on being on the other side of the touchline.

As a teenager, he began coaching youth teams at Pencaitland and Ormiston before he enrolled for a Higher National Diploma (HND) at Edinburgh College.

During both summers of his two-year study at college, Waugh headed to America to coach.

And now he is combining his studies with his internship at the SPFL Championship side.

Waugh (pictured), 20, told Courier Sport: “It involves working within the Dundee United academy observing, coaching and researching how the current academy coaches coach players within an elite football academy compared to boys’ club football.

“It also allows me to have continuous professional development training as a coach in the Dundee United academy and the potential to obtain further football coaching qualifications.”

The third-year student at Abertay University in the City of Discovery is spending the whole of the 2017/18 campaign with the Tannadice club.

“That allows me to get feedback and advice from academy coaches as to what it takes to become an academy coach and how to work my way up the coaching ladder,” he added.