In February last year I was asked to write a piece about Aston Villa. They were second in the Sky Bet Championship and so the time seemed right to appraise how they had got there and their readiness or otherwise to return to the Premier League. Speak to people in and around the club, I was told, gauge the mood, reflect the atmosphere. Perhaps I could give Steve Bruce a ring; after all, I had known him for a long time.

That last bit, though, was not on the agenda. Joe, Bruce’s dad, had just died and Sheenagh, his mother, was in hospital with a serious illness (from which she never recovered), and Villa’s manager was reeling, juggling his work with thrice-weekly trips up the