It was the summer of love for English football.

Those long, hot, heady weeks when the Three Lions won us back over, the beer flew and Gareth Southgate and his waist coat became national treasures.

England moved to the brink of a World Cup final when Kieran Trippier unleashed a free-kick which even Glenn Murray’s left arm might not have stopped.

The nation roared its approval. And Albion’s most influential figures kept quiet. Very quiet.

Turns out it wasn’t just the Champagne and the Smirnoff which were being kept on ice as England progressed in Russia.

So were Albion’s plans to appoint their first technical director.

Dan Ashworth has been a wanted man at Lancing for months. He hugely impressed Albion chiefs when they decided to turn talk of having a technical director into action.

Chief executive Paul Barber trimmed his “long shortlist” down to something more succinct and set about interviewing at home and abroad.

But none of those he spoke to could match up to Ashworth, the man who did a widely acclaimed job at West Brom and was a big part of England success at senior and age-group levels.

Barber and chairman Tony Bloom knew the very specific niche they wanted to fill and the type of person who would fit the bill.

But the last thing they needed, for everyone’s sake, was for their strengthening relationship with Ashworth to surface while the world’s eyes were on Russia.

So they trod carefully. And the end result is they might just have just signed one of the most wanted men of his type in world football.

Ashworth has agreed to become technical director at Albion when he has served out his six-month notice period with the FA.

That will be in spring unless some sort of agreement bringing the date forward is reached.

Albion are relaxed about his precise start date. After all, this is a long-term appointment which has been some time in the making.

Barber told The Argus: “Tony and I have talked about this probably on and off for a couple of years.

“We have always gone through, if we were to do it, how would it work?

“What sort of person would it be? How would they fit into the structure we have got?

“Would they be English, British, from overseas?

“Would they have to have excellent language skills or would their background be more coaching, or recruitment.

“All of a sudden we said, ‘We’ve reached the Premier League, we now feel it is the right time to make this appointment’.

“Brexit is on the horizon so who knows where that is going to take us with recruitment of overseas players?

“Therefore the academy could well become even more important than it is already.

“It would be great to have another very experienced developer and identifier of players.

“That is where we started to shape the role.

“You don’t need Chris (Hughton) reporting to a technical director so we immediately ruled that one out.

“The individual departments were working really well so it had to be someone who wanted to oversee those areas but not get in the way of people doing their day-to-day.

“When you start to spec out the job this way, it actually narrows down the field quite quickly.

“It then came down to personality fit.

“We wanted someone who was collaborative, no ego, someone who had credibility in the game for what they had achieved but also for being the person they are.

“Honest and hard-working, decent, respectful, polite – all the sort of things in the people we try to hire and Dan ticked all the boxes.

“I interviewed a number of people in the UK and overseas.

“Every time I came back from one of those trips, I kind of measured them against Dan.

“How did they stack up against someone who, quite quickly, emerged as our No.1 candidate?

“From that point of view, we were absolutely delighted to get him.

“Our head-hunters presented me with what I would call a long shortlist which we narrowed down.

“The chairman then got involved and once we identified our top candidate was when we got others involved.”

Those others included Hughton and men who will now report to Ashworth – John Morling (academy), Adam Brett (medical), Paul Winstanley (recruitment) and David Weir (pathway development).

Barber believes Ashworth’s time at West Brom gives him a good grasp of all those areas at a club of Albion’s size He said: “People could see from the start how he adds something different.

“His time at West Brom and then taking that role to another level at the FA means he brings a lot more than the average technical director who has only ever worked in club football.

“He has a network of contacts and a network of experiences from looking at some of the best processes and practices in football across the world.

“That gives us a fantastic advantage, we feel, in hiring him.

“Everyone is going to be keen to learn.”

And so the man was chosen, Ashworth liked what he saw and it was all systems go. But with care.

Barber said: “We were very conscious that the World Cup was something which wasn’t just important to Dan and Gareth (Southgate) and the FA but to the entire football nation.

“We didn’t want to be responsible for any sort of story coming out that distracted Gareth or Dan or the FA.

“That was a very important part of our thinking and we suspended everything during that period.

“That worked well because clearly England did well and Dan’s stock rose even higher.

“The downside was that, by the time the World Cup finished, every club in the world who wanted a technical director had Dan on their mind.

“It could have backfired on us but thankfully it didn’t.

“He was the sort of person we wanted in the club and I think he was confident we were the type of club he would fit right into.

“I spoke to (FA chief executive) Martin Glenn (yesterday afternoon) to thank him for his patience and understanding and to wish the FA all the best in their replacement process.

“Martin has reiterated how lucky we are to have him.

“We thank him very publicly for his support.”