You can see most of Steve Bruce’s scars, the broken nose, the gash above his eye, but it is the ones buried deep inside that make their way to the surface as he reflects ahead of his first Steel City derby as Sheffield Wednesday manager.

This is Bruce raw and uncut – on the trauma of losing both his parents and his job as Aston Villa manager last year, and of being diagnosed with cancer.

He talks of the “guilt” he feels about “not spending more time with my parents because I was consumed by my job”, how he still “reaches for his phone every day to call my dad... the grief that consumes me every time”.

He speaks about his wife, Jan, and the “heroic” role she played in looking after his mother, following a severe stroke. But also how, without her, he would have walked away from football years ago.

“When I heard the word ‘cancer’, I was in bits,” he admits. “I panicked, I think everyone does, it was very scary, horrible. Thankfully, the melanoma does not appear to have spread. They’ll continue to monitor me, I’ve got scars on my face, on my back. Good thing I was never worried about my good looks...”