Many footballers dream of walking out onto the hallowed turf of Old Trafford and raising a trophy.

Yet silversmith Steve Ottewill has lifted so many cups in his time he was not tempted when he presented his latest commission, the Legends Trophy, to the bosses of Manchester United.

His company Ottewill Silversmiths has quietly become the maker of choice for the top flight club, which asked him to make replicas of the Champions League and Premier League trophies to show at its visitor centre and shops in 2013.

Mr Ottewill, who launched his business in Evegate Business Park in Smeeth, near Ashford, in 1993, said: “We even get some commissions from the players and the directors.”

Today the quality of his firm’s work has earned him the right to rub shoulders with Olympic athletes and Middle Eastern heads of state.

High profile commissions have included designing the Henley Royal Regatta trophy, which he proudly presented to new chairman Sir Steve Redgrave this year.

The firm's most prestigious job was designing and making the League One and League Two trophies when npower was the sponsor.

London design studio Barber Osgerby is a major client and Ottewills helped develop the design for the Olympic Torches used in London 2012.

The company aims to open a new, modern workshop in autumn next year and wants to develop a sliversmithing apprenticeship.

However, things were not always easy for Mr Ottewill, a former North School pupil in Ashford who trained at Rochester Fort Pitt, which was “the place for silversmithing in Great Britain” before it closed.

“When you first set up a business purely in manufacturing it is quite tricky,” he said. “But we work well and I maintained a link with the London silver houses, working with them but not in my name.”

After a while slogging it for other people’s glory, his name became known to clients in the Middle East, who began to employ Ottewills to make the trophies for sporting events and gifts to be given to wealthy visitors.

“We have been very lucky,” said Mr Ottewill, who runs the business with his wife Karen. “In the Middle East we have made things for many heads of state and been very good at it.

“I thoroughly enjoy working with those clients. They are very demanding, but we deliver on time so there is no problem.”

Success has been a “long haul” mainly developed through word of mouth and a small retail arm at their Ashford workshop.

Mr Ottewill remembers being told in his first interview with accountants Wilkins Kennedy that “arts in business will never work” and became determined to prove them wrong.

Today, the business has a turnover of £1.8 million a year and employs 20 people, mainly in the highly-skilled manufacturing part of the business.

Mr Ottewill is very clear on why he thinks his firm has been a success.

He said: “In silversmithing, a company has to be around for 400 years before it is considered any good. However, a lot of the London silver houses didn’t invest in new machinery and they shut down because they didn’t move with the times.

“We saw it happening and when the workshops closed we took on their best craftsmen.

“If you look at our industry we have been through a fantastic industrial revolution where new machinery and technology is being used in manufacturing.

“We have tools which can design and build objects to show to clients, where historically we had to draw what they wanted.

“We’ve invested in new cutting-edge technology which helps us and clients envisage what we are building. It cost more than £300,000, all of which was self-funded.

“Ask anyone in manufacturing and they will tell you it is tough, but we are in an industry we love.”