CALLUM Coulter says he is determined to use his experiences to his advantage following his Colchester United exit.

The 20-year-old goalkeeper is now searching for a new club, after his three-year spell at the U’s came to an end following his release.

Although Coulter did not make a senior appearance during his time at the JobServe Community Stadium, he nevertheless spent much of the season in Colchester’s first-team squad and was regularly involved on matchday.

He is now determined to put all of those experiences to good use, as he prepares for his next challenge.

Coulter said: “I look back on my time there as a positive learning curve, knowing that I’ve gained quite a lot of experience which hopefully I’ll be using to my advantage in the future.

“I’m not going to stop – I’m going to carry on wherever the football path takes me, which could be absolutely anywhere.

“I’m not going to stop until I get to where I want to be.

“In football, you have to learn and take something from everything.

“I’m always looking to learn and improve more so as soon as I get something that I feel is worth taking on board, I’m going to grab it with both hands.

“Colchester were really the first club to really put their trust in me.

“I’ve enjoyed all of my time there, over the past three years.

“Being involved as I was, training every day, going on matchdays doing the warm-ups and sometimes being on the bench really teaches you about a different part of the game that you don’t really seem to know, until you’re actually put in it.

“It was a very good thing to have under my belt and I’ve taken a lot of things away from it.

“There’s a lot of stuff that goes on behind the scenes like your pre-match routine, when you get to the stadium and all of the stuff like when you’re in the changing room.

“All players have different routines and you just learn to adapt to it and slowly start bringing your own routine in.

“It was definitely a good thing to learn.”

Harwich and Manningtree Standard:

Coulter trained with first-team keepers Dean Gerken and Shamal George on a daily basis under the guidance of goalkeeper coach Darren Smith, this season.

“It’s been brilliant being around Gerks all year," said the former Crystal Palace youngster.

“He’s helped me so much with my improvement and he’s been really instrumental with that.

“He’s so helpful and the experience that he’s got is incredible, with the amount of games that he’s played.

“It’s always good and I’m always listening when he’s telling me something, because I know it’s going to be useful.

“I could kind of relate to Shamal a bit more because he’s been in my situation a couple of years ago when he was with Liverpool.

“He was doing exactly what I was doing, maybe on the bench or being third choice, or training with the first team all the time and not really getting many games.

“I spoke to him quite a lot and he’d know how I’d be feeling, so he was someone I could relate to.”

Coulter has already had to overcome considerable adversity in life, having suffered serious injuries in a horrific road accident at the age of 13.

As a result, he fractured his skull in 12 different places, was left partially blind in his left eye and 50 per cent deaf in his right ear.

The former Maldon and Tiptree loanee was on the bench for Colchester’s final game of the season at Tranmere Rovers earlier this month says it has been a valuable experience for him, at his young age.

He added: “This whole season has been a massive learning curve and whole new experience for me.

“For a young footballer in any position, getting game time is massively important.

“You need to play games and no matter what they are and no matter what level, just playing 90 minutes will improve you more than any training session would because you can’t replicate games in training.

“Whether it’s playing 23s or going out on loan or first team or under-18s, the 90 minutes of football is always going to be a learning curve, because no 90 minutes is the same.”