Captain David Artell believes Crewe's firmly established team spirit could prove to be a decisive factor in Sunday's npower League Two play-off final against Cheltenham.
Alex have taken their phenomenal late-season form into the play-offs and semi-final success against Southend moved a club-record unbeaten run to 18 matches.
A youthful and largely homegrown team, boasting the stand-out talents of sought-after England Under-18 international Nick Powell in attack, now head to Wembley as favourites in the eyes of many observers.
Despite finishing five points behind Cheltenham in seventh when the regular season closed, the Railwaymen picked up a pair of 1-0 wins against their opponents - the latter of which served as the only blot on the Robins' own impressive streak of five wins in six outings.
Artell, who scored the winner in that game and is set to lead his team-mates out at the national stadium despite nursing a broken metatarsal, insists the togetherness underpinning Crewe's extended purple patch is a far cry from the environment he encountered upon moving to Gresty Road from Morecambe in summer 2010.
"It gives us an edge, without a shadow of a doubt," he said.
"When I first came here and walked in that dressing room it was like a morgue.
"I've come from some fantastic ones. Rotherham's dressing room was unbelievable - it was like it is in there now.
"When I was at Rotherham a lad could come up to me and say 'lend us some money', 'drive me home' 'take me here, take me there', 'come out for a drink with us I've got something to say'.
"You'd just do it. You wouldn't ask why or where. And it's the same dressing room in there now, with that unity. Obviously it helps that they've grown up together.
"We've been on a few bonding sessions to Chester racecourse and things like that and it's worth points. When things are getting tough it transfers onto the pitch."
Artell's assertion that this unity can pull Crewe's youngsters through the white-hot intensity of a sweltering Wembley afternoon is hardened by the fact he has seen the flip-side.
"When I was on loan at Shrewsbury it was a really bad dressing room - big divisions, lads wouldn't want to pass to people," he explained.
"And it's awful - it sounds stupid, but it is. I walked into that dressing room as a 19-year-old lad with eyes wide open and within a week I was saying 'why didn't you just pass it there?'."
Such questions are not on the agenda for Steve Davis' squad as they look to end a three-year stay in the fourth tier.
Artell is revelling in his role of respected senior figure, even if the battle-hardened 31-year-old centre-back sometimes finds the compliments difficult to accept with open arms.
He added: "I know it sounds silly, but Luke Murphy's (Crewe midfielder) mum said to my wife 'he looks up to him'. And as blokes you don't say things like that - well I don't anyway.
"They're a bit more responsive than at other clubs because I'm old and they probably think I know more.
"I feel very privileged to be captain and be held in the esteem that some of the lads hold me in.
"I'm sure they all don't - I'm sure some of them are talking behind my back right now."
