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Alan Irvine exclusive: Keeping Sheffield Wednesday in this division is absolutely vital
Alan Irvine offers tea and a welcome to his office at a snowbound Middlewood training ground and sits in the seat that's been warmed by six other bosses' backsides in the past 10 years.
Good coaches have come and gone from Hillsborough in a decade when Wednesday have struggled for survival rather than the return to the Premier League their fans have hardly dared dream of since relegation in 2000.
Former Everton and Crystal Palace winger Alan Irvine has a reputation in the game as a genuine man and a top coach.
But Sheffield Wednesday eats up both man and manager.
Why will he succeed where the others have failed?
READ MORE OF OUR ALAN IRVINE EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW: Sheffield Wednesday can be as big as Everton; My view on Sheffield derbies
"Someone once said 'To be a great coach, just get great players', which is obviously true but, few of us get the chance to work that way," said 51-year-old Irvine.
"We made a good start at Wednesday but you don't go from four wins all season and instantly become a different team with the same players.
"I'm still trying to get to know their characters and personalities. You find out more about people when things are going wrong."
Alan Irvine found out a lot more about himself when he was sacked by Preston North End in strange circumstances.
"It really hit my confidence," said the man who was once offered a 10-year contract to try and keep him at Newcastle United as academy boss.
"If you'd asked me at Preston what I'd be doing in five years' time I would have been a bit more confident and said I will be a better manager but what happened there has made me realise just how fragile all this is and how quickly things can change.
"I did not think I would have been sacked by Preston. I didn't think I would ever be sacked by anybody."
But this is a man steeped in the lore and legend of football, a man from a tough city with mentors and heroes who have shown there is a way back from almost every adversity.
Alan James Irvine grew up in the blue half of Glasgow where his dad Jim, who turned down the chance to play for Norwich City in his youth, took him to his first game at Ibrox when he was a toddler.
"My dad would have been the biggest influence on me growing up," said the man who went on to coach a precocious 16-year-old Wayne Rooney at Everton.
"My dad first took me to see Rangers when I was three. He would take me to Ibrox and all over the place.
"I grew up watching Willie Henderson and that generation and had my picture taken with Jim Baxter as a three-year-old - he was some player."
Alan wasn't always destined to be a professional footballer. He had been turned down by Manchester City and Leeds United - his other boyhood love and the team of another of his all-time heroes, Peter Lorimer.
He did well at school, set off on a career in insurance at the age of 16,
but kept playing football for amateur club Queen's Park, where he was later spotted and lured to Everton.
His father Jim and mother Sylvia still follow his career and Alan tries to be equally involved in his own children's lives.
But it's tough to be a family man when you run a football club and the Irvines won't be moving the family home to Sheffield from their base in Southport.
"It's not fantastic to be away from your family a lot but even when I was working at Preston and went home every night I wouldn't see much of them," said father-of-three Alan.
"I will be watching three games this week plus our own and we work from 8am to 8pm and later if we're watching games.
"I have a son Ryan who's coming up to eight-years-old and my time for seeing him tended to be 6.30am at breakfast and then I'd not see him again until the following morning.
"I miss that but we have to put up with it.
"My other son, Michael, has just started studying medicine at Birmingham University. He already has a degree in English.
"My daughter Lauren, has just started at Manchester University.
"There's not much point moving everyone.
"I don't spend that much time at home midweek and it would be pointless disrupting their lives.
"I have a meeting this week about renting then buying a two-bedroom apartment somewhere in the city.
"I won't be looking to buy anything during the football season, I'll rent something until the summer.
"The way we do the job is all-consuming.
"Keeping Sheffield Wednesday in this division is absolutely vital.
"I don't have time to be furnishing a house."
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Weather for Sheffield
Saturday 26 May 2012
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Temperature: 9 C to 21 C
Wind Speed: 17 mph
Wind direction: East
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Temperature: 11 C to 21 C
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