Grant McCann will have the chance to prove to the doubters that he’s a manager deserving of working at Championship level when the season kicks off in earnest this weekend.
The Hull City boss had been roundly vilified this time last year after he oversaw a catastrophic collapse that saw his side go from play-off challengers to bottom of the table fodder in just 20 games.
While his cause was not helped by the club’s decision to sell Jarrod Bowen and Kamil Grosicki, two key attacking players and the Tigers’ main source of chances and goals, McCann’s stock was low and there were few fans keen to see him remain in charge after what was a catastrophic collapse.
By his own admission he was somewhat fortunate to remain in a job given the state of his side’s collapse, but to his credit, he brushed himself off, puffed out his chest and returned to work more determined than ever to put it right.
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Fast forward another 12 dramatic months, and just like that, City are back in the second tier having gone into League One, won promotion and secured the club’s first league title in over 50 years.
And they’ve done it all with their supporters locked out of the stadium, forced to watch on from homes up and down the country.
Put it right he did, and in style, redemption part one had been achieved.
Come 3pm at Deepdale this Saturday, City will march out against Preston North End, decked out in their new, stylish kit to a collective hero’s welcome from the travelling supporters gathered away to their right in the Bill Shankly Kop.
For McCann, it will be a chance to wipe the slate clean and prove to himself first and foremost that this is a level at which he belongs, and that what happened a year ago was part of a remarkably unfortunate chain of events, unprecedented you could say.
Throughout his life, McCann has never had it easy and it seems almost fitting that he should be employed by an institution that seems to lurch from situation to situation – many of them difficult – to therefore ensure his professional life remains far from straightforward.
A transfer embargo – or phrase it however you wish – a challenging budget and an ownership that remains at odds with sections of its fanbase who remain defiant in their desire to see the club sold and fresh blood introduced.
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Against that backdrop, McCann has battled tirelessly to assemble a young, vibrant and hungry playing squad that will be going into the new season with momentum, confident in their roles and with a style of play suited to the second tier.
Many from outside will write City off, maybe even more so than last season, but those close to the club are right to have a steely determination, a quiet confidence that this should be a season to relish, and one for McCann to lay those ghosts of Championship past to rest.
Over the next 46 games, Hull City will have their sticky patches, there will be runs without goals, without wins and times where things may look a little iffy, but in McCann, they have somebody that’s gone down to the depths and resurfaced with his head above the parapet.
What his players can take comfort in, is the determination of their manager to respond to failure, and if they can summon up the levels of positive energy they found throughout last season then there’s no reason to think City cannot have a positive return and do so with a core group of players that know what it means to represent this football club.
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