Dundee-born Kurt Herd is Scotland's only international men's manager, juggling seven roles for Dominica

Only Scot in international dugout

More than 4,000 miles from his native Dundee, Kurt Herd is flying the flag for Scotland in international football. The 34-year-old is manager of Dominica, the Caribbean island nation, making him the only Scottish manager currently leading an international men's side.

"I'll be calling my mum and dad with that one," Herd laughs.

Appointed permanently in August after a short-term stint, Herd's role bears little resemblance to that of Scotland manager Steve Clarke or his successor Sebastien Pocognoli. Herd is not just Dominica's manager but effectively their analyst, scout, nutritionist and yoga instructor rolled into one, given he is the only full-time staff member for the team.

"A real whirlwind the last few weeks, but it's been amazing for me as a coach to go and test myself," Herd tells BBC Scotland. "It's been the toughest but the greatest three or four weeks of my career so far."

Building a programme from scratch

At 34, Herd has already packed a lot in. The former Dundee United academy coach has worked in Sweden, Australia, Malaysia and Kyrgyzstan. He has met Arsene Wenger and other big football figures along the way and now his task is to improve the world's 182nd-best side, made up of largely amateur players from an island population of about 65,000.

Most of Dominica's players play in their own domestic league, which Herd roughly equates to League Two in Scotland. While other Caribbean nations like Haiti and Curacao have used many overseas players to push for World Cup qualification, rules in Dominica limit them to having six. A rule change in January will allow Herd to start recruiting players with Dominican grandparents.

Former St Mirren and Livingston goalkeeper Shamal George, now at Bromley, is one Herd has been able to identify through social media and the use of talent-spotters.

"I sit on Instagram for two or three hours and I'm just looking at player profiles, trying to see if somebody's got a little Dominica flag in that bio page," Herd says. "I'm on the phone constantly. Whether that's scrolling social media - and it's not for fun - it's because I'm looking at players' profiles and databases."

"I've got people that are doing that for me as well. I've got people in the US, Canada, Europe, UK, that their job for me is to contact clubs, contact agents, contact players, come back to me and tell me, yeah, coach, we've got one. And those guys have been absolutely priceless to me."

Setting professional standards

Recruitment is not the only tool Herd is deploying as Dominica compete in the Concacaf Nations League B this autumn. The squad are now performing yoga and other mindfulness techniques, while Herd is always reinforcing dietary and sleep advice to the group to go with his team and one-to-one coaching.

He even makes sure he is up running every morning and is never seen with a beer at night so he can try to set professional standards in view of his adopted community.

"It's tough, to be honest - it's relentless," he admits. "I'm doing everything at the minute."

"I'm the full-time member of staff, so it all falls on my shoulders. Everybody else has got jobs. I've got one assistant coach that I work with, but he's a school teacher. Even now we're in camp, he's still working. He's still trying to teach kids. I don't mind it because I feel like I need to control the situation for now because we're in a cycle of change. And it has to be me that drives that change. And I have to show people why we're doing it and how we're doing it."

From Abertay to the Caribbean

Herd has been in Dominica for two years now, having worked with the youth sides before in his role as a talent coach with Fifa. He says he has "fallen in love" with the country and its people, who consider him one of them now.

That drive has been with him throughout his career, from when he left Scotland for Australia without a job after graduating from Abertay University and ended up coaching Magic FC. The journey has taken him to Kuala Lumpur, where he worked with Villarreal's Asian arm, to the high mountains of Kyrgyzstan, where goats blocking the road once held up a training session for four hours.

The experience of working across so many football cultures has been rewarding, as have some of the other moments along the way. That includes playing five-a-side against former Portugal striker Nuno Gomes at a Fifa event in Paraguay and nearly facing Arsene Wenger in Zurich.

"We get given the teams before and I'm like, 'oh my God, I'm on Arsene Wenger's team.' I've taken a photo of that, I've sent it back home. Unbelievable. So we've got ready, gone on the field and we're warming up and a little bit of drizzle comes through. And I'm looking for Arsene. I'm going, where's Arsene gone? So we've gone down into the restaurant and Arsene's just sitting there with a bottle of red wine. He's like, 'no man, the rain, it's not for me. When I was in London, I have enough'. So we're soaked through. He's sitting there with a nice red wine, enjoying himself."

Herd's not sure where his coaching journey will take him next, but his ambition is to eventually get into club football at as high a level as possible.

"I want this on a daily basis," he says. "I want that pressure. I want that day-to-day grind."

For now, it's back to wearing his many hats with Dominica in their quest for Nations League promotion.