Sam Hutchinson has little trouble pinpointing what rock bottom looked like.

“I didn’t speak to my mum and dad for a year and a half, two years,” he reflects. “Literally, it was just me and my missus. I used to record Homes Under the Hammer, wake up at like 2pm and sit watching it under a blanket. She’d come in from work and be like, ‘What are you doing with your life? You need to start playing football again.’ I was severely depressed. I had some bad thoughts.”

It will be a very different picture at Stamford Bridge on Sunday evening, when Hutchinson is likely to be wearing the widest of smiles as he walks out with Sheffield Wednesday to face his former club, Chelsea, in the FA Cup. The family he pushed away for a time will be in the crowd to cheer him on and the occasion, he says, will be both “a closure” and “a celebration” – closure from the darkest of days, celebration at what he has come through. “I cannot wait,” he says. “As soon as the tie got announced, I celebrated with my little boy. It will actually be the first time I’ve been back since I left.”