Wayne takes over from Kevin Horlock and will begin work to build next season’s squad as the Jammers look to gain promotion from the Bostik North Division.

The former Ipswich Town, Colchester United, Hull City and Leicester City defender arrives at Park Drive with a wealth of playing and coaching experience.

A no nonsense, uncompromising leader on the pitch, Wayne played over 350 professional matches in a successful career spanning over 14 years and earned promotion to the Championship with the U’s before going on to play in the Premier League with Hull.

When his playing days came to a close, Wayne has moved into coaching and has developed a strong reputation for sides playing successful football.

His Colchester United U18s won the Football League Youth Alliance and Youth Alliance Cup double in 2014 and, as the U’s U23s manager, he took his side to the Quarter Finals of the Premier League Cup, defeating Manchester City, Sunderland and Hull City along the way.

Wayne has also had a caretaker spell in charge of Colchester’s first team and will step back into mens’ football as he takes the reins at Maldon.

Maldon & Tiptree chairman Ed Garty said: "Wayne has got the motivation and the determination to drive us forward in the non-league game and we are very pleased to have him at Maldon & Tiptree next season.

"We are striving to get promoted from this level and Wayne has a genuine winning mentality which he will bring to this football club.

"Here at the club, we are keen to develop players alongside the goal of getting promoted and his coaching ability will give us a very good chance of achieving both aims.

"We are confident that Wayne's experience on and off the pitch will give us a real opportunity of getting promoted next season.

"He has a great desire to be successful in his own right as a manager and we now enter a very busy period of putting the squad together. We'll be aiming to get a group of players together earlier this year, so that they can get to know each other ahead of the start of the season and ensure we're ready to go when the first game kicks off in August.

"There will be some experience with knowledge of this level in there, but we'll also be keen to get young footballers in after the successes we had with Junior Ogedi-Uzokwe and Ryan Gondoh this season."