“I didn’t want us to lose that spirit we’d shown. My message to the players was: ‘Take a deep breath and go again, you’ve handled that situation really well now use this as a platform to kick on’. It would have been so easy for them to have said: ‘New owner, tax bill paid, money in the bank, relax, we’re all right now’. That was the biggest test. They grabbed that and ran with it.”

As much as he is anxious to praise his players, at the centre of the recovery, the very architect of survival, has been the manager. Wilder had arrived at Sixfields in 2014, after a lengthy spell in charge down the A43 at Oxford. He was quietly and effectively rebuilding the side, bringing in players of the quality of the centre forward Marc Richards and Adam Smith, the brilliant young Leicester goalkeeper who was released by the Premier League leaders after disgracing himself on their Thai tour last summer.

Unbeknown to him, however, while he was working on the pitch, off it the chairman was embroiled in a development scheme that went horribly awry. As things fell apart in the boardroom, Wilder maintained astonishing spirit among the support staff and in the dressing room. More than that, however, he was instrumental in finding the investors to pull the club back from the very lip of self-destruction.