Over the coming weeks, Chris Wilder will attempt to complete the long climb from the base camp of English football's bottom place to the peak of the Premier League. As managerial ascents go, this has been a truly remarkable one.
There have been no leg-ups for the 51-year-old. Quite the opposite, in fact, since February 1, 2014, when he first took his place in the dugout for Northampton Town — a club six points from safety at the bottom of League Two. Winding-up orders, players not being paid and budget restrictions are some of the obstructions negotiated with the obstinate spirit the Yorkshireman instils in his teams.
Five years on, life is good and destiny is in Wilder's own hands. With eight matches left in the Championship promotion race, his beloved Sheffield United are second, a point above Leeds, on the back of seven wins in an unbeaten sequence of 10 fixtures.
Sheffield United boss Chris Wilder is leading a promotion push towards the Premier League
Aficionados have it that the more aesthetically pleasing duo of Norwich City, under the German Daniel Farke, and Leeds United, guided by the global coaching guru Marcelo Bielsa, will secure the top-two spots, leaving United in the play-offs.
127 - League games won by Chris Wilder since he took over at Northampton in February 2014. It is the most of any manager in English league football since then. The next closest are Wigan boss Paul Cook and Tottenham manager Mauricio Pochettino on 114.
52 - Chris Wilder's win percentage since his first game in charge of Northampton. It's the highest league win rate of any British manager in that time and the seventh overall. No one outside that top seven has won more than half their games.
They should be warned, Wilder loves nothing more than proving people wrong.
'It's Northampton and one other going down,' he said himself in 2014, on quitting an Oxford United team looking to get out of League Two via the preferred route for one heading in the opposite direction. Those close to him knew this was merely kidology. Not only did he save Northampton — they were champions, with 99 points, within two years.
In fact, since inheriting the country's 92nd-best team, no manager in the top four divisions can match Wilder's 127 league victories and his 52 per cent is the highest win ratio of any Brit to have taken charge of 100 matches or more.
Success with Northampton landed him his dream job. Despite a hotchpotch accent caused by his family's move to London as a boy, his initial years were spent in the terraced houses that back on to Bramall Lane. He inherited a mid-table Sheffield United team that had just finished below Walsall, Gillingham, Rochdale and Scunthorpe United and, despite a slow start, bettered the Northampton
