Brought to the club by then-director of rugby Barrie Corless, Martin started working with the Saints Under-21s. In a decade of success, he coached the East Midlands to four County Championship Under-21 finals, winning two of them, before being invited to become chief scout by John Steele.
"I remember coming in for the first training session and meeting Jon Raphael who pointed me in the right direction!" he says. "Coming to the club was a whole new experience for me. I was on a trial basis, but I remember how friendly everyone was.
"I had changed schools to one which did not have sufficient numbers to run a senior first team and was keen to continue coaching at the highest level possible. So I was grateful to Barrie for the opportunity.
"When rugby turned professional Under-21 became a bit too old. But I'm delighted that the club is going back to having as full a fixture list as possible at age group level.
"Skill development is one thing, but players only get better by actually playing games and this is what Dusty Hare and the rest of the coaches are getting back to. It's better now than at any time in the past 10 years. I'm all in favour of how the Academy is playing more fixtures and how the relationships are being built up.
"I'm going to miss it, and one of the regrets about moving away from the area is that I'm not going to be involved as much."
As mentioned earlier, Martin has worked with some of the biggest names in the game. Inevitably though there are one or two players who stand out in his memory.
"Budge Pountney had fantastic determination and attitude," he says. "From my experience this is what makes players stand out. I've often said that players have talent, but it's then down to the coaches and his own attitude as to whether he then makes it. You've got to see him week in, week out for that.
"Ali Hepher was another cracking player, and I'm delighted to see him doing so well as a coach with Exeter. Ian Vass was a very talented player who was unfortunate to not get back to where he had been before a serious leg injury. And I was the first to talk to Matt Dawson and bring him to the club after coaching him with Buckinghamshire Under-16s.
"I also remember Ian McGeechan saying in the late-1990s that we need a replacement for Freddie Mendez, 'Clive, who have you got?' We were trying to convert Steve Thompson to being a prop at the time, and I pushed for him to be a hooker. And the rest is history!"
Recruitment and development manager Dusty Hare says that Martin deserves plaudits for the work he has done for the Saints over the past two decades.
"I've only worked with Clive for a relatively short time, but I have known him for a lot longer and he has worked very hard for the Saints, often without much recognition from the wider public," he said. "Sometimes that is in the nature of the job - a scout spends a lot of time on the road building relationships and identifying talent. But the work someone like Clive does is vital in the long-term development of the players coming into the squad.
"Clive has played a big part in the growth of the Saints Academy, and while we will miss him I hope that he will remain involved in some capacity over the coming years."
