He suggests meeting at Edins on Broad Street, one of his favourite watering holes.

Loosely, his firm specialises in helping professional firms grow, thinking laterally and challenging them in that thought process.

But first, I ask about that rather strange name.

Bernard screws his face up, smiles, and utters a kind of laugh.

A Mansfield Town fanatic, he regularly watches them play.

In May, 1987, following a penalty shoot-out, Kevin Hitchcock, now a premiership goalkeeper, saved two penalties with his size 10½ boots to win Mansfield their only Wembley Cup Final.

Bernard recalls: "When Kevin was interviewed after the game, he said: 'Who needs hands when you have size ten-and-a-half boots like me.

"And all in his cockney accent.

"That resonated with me and captured my imagination."

Grinning, Bernard lifts up his own ten-and-a-half shoe-clad feet for me to inspect.

"So when I launched Size 10½ Boots, Kevin was a coach at Blackburn Rovers. I phoned and left a message.

"A few days later, I was driving to Luton Airport, and Kevin came on the phone .

"I was taken aback; he remembered me from his Mansfield days.

"I told him I was launching a business called Size 10½ Boots and he said I was 'bleeding mad' but was happy to support me.

"Kevin, today goalkeeping coach at Manchester City, has been generous with time and goodwill ever since.

"My name has, by association, gone from Mansfield, to Blackburn and now Manchester City, a top four team."

Bernard started his business in 2005 after a career which took him to Shell and Proctor and Gamble, a company almost regarded as a business school

"The downside of working for a large organisation is that you need to leave your personality behind," he said. " I always said I wanted personality in a business."

Bernard is full of personality and one can sense he may be a square peg in a round hole in a large company.

Today, he appears content running his own small business.

Size 10½ Boots can check the state of a relationship between his client and its customers and on top of that, he can help open doors to new clients.

His brochure tells me Size 10½ Boots will make marketing and business development budgets go further.

He said; "By using a winning combination of research, proven tools, and plain old business savvy, we help our clients achieve their goals...it's as simple as that."

In a way, that sums up Bernard. Anything is achievable.

His firm will go into a client's business, carrying out a thorough investigation to find out what the market and its key clients are really saying about it and its competitors.

Bernard said: "We will identify blind spots in the current service offer through interviews with key clients. We gather an insight and translate it into practical commercial advice in a client review process."

I ask Bernard what he has learned from forming his own business – clients have included law firm Addleshaw Goddard, quantity surveyors Gleeds, accountants Mazars and SPG Media.

He said: "First, confidence. If you have confidence, you can do anything.

"Secondly, focus. and thirdly, hard work It sounds trite but people expect setting up a business to be easy. It isn't."

Bernard says Size 10½ Boots has helped clients achieve "phenomenal success,", opening doors at a senior level.

Another side of the business carries out in-house capability, training, coaching, mentoring and fee-earners

"But the message I want to get across is this: there are a lot of fluffy consultants – we are not fluffy," said Bernard.

"We are all about delivering the bottom line.."

Bernard says his time with Eversheds convinced him there was a "burning need" for law firms to raise their game.

"Buyers of legal services are increasingly promiscuous. They are very discerning, and law firms are notoriously bad at differentiating themselves.

"Those that offer improved services and clients can differentiate their offer, will win."

Bernard came to Nottingham to read psychology at the University of Nottingham before moving away to pursue his career.

He and his wife, Melanie, have three boys and a girl, although his season ticket membership of Mansfield Town counts as membership of another family, he says.