Stephen Baxter addresses future after legendary Crusaders boss is celebrated during testimonial against Derry City

Baxter has been in charge of the North Belfast club since 2005, racking up almost 1,000 matches while collecting 12 major trophies – including four Irish Cup crowns and three Premiership titles – and announced he’d be stepping away from the Crues role in February.

The world’s current longest-serving manager still has at least a few weeks left at the helm, leading Crusaders into another European campaign – his 13th – against Welsh outfit Caernarfon Town in the UEFA Conference League qualifying first round before the winner takes on Polish side Legia Warsaw.

He was celebrated at Saturday’s testimonial against Derry City – the team Baxter’s men defeated in the Setanta Sports Cup final back in 2012 to become just the second Irish League side to win that competition – and while it’ll soon be time for the 58-year-old to fully pass responsibilities onto his former player Caddell, he says you “never know” what the future could hold.

“I never at any stage said that I was retiring, a lot of media brought that into it,” he said. “From my point of view, I always think in life, whether it’s football or business or whatever you do, I think there comes a period when you know that you’ve walked that journey and I had got to that point where I didn’t know if I could a lot more and it was time to hand over to others.

“Declan Caddell, Steven Livingstone and David Rainey are three people who played for me and they’ve a big affiliation to this football club and there’s a great managerial team behind the scenes, there’s a great squad of players and Declan has added some new blood.

“I’m obviously here for another period of time, so I haven’t stepped away fully as manager, because I’m here for Europe. I need to see that job through and that was always the plan.

“Because of Europe, there’s still those connections with the club and, until I step away completely from it whenever they exit Europe, then we’ll see.

"If someone picks up the phone and rings me and says, ‘Stephen, there’s a big job to be done’ and I feel as if I’m refreshed, then you never know.