At regular intervals during this season — sometimes on a Sunday morning — Daniel Levy and fellow Tottenham directors Matthew Collecott and Donna-Maria Cullen would gather at the site of the club's new stadium for an update on progress.
It was not always an enjoyable experience. As delay followed delay and the club sought new ways to reassure disenchanted supporters, Levy and colleagues began to wonder just how the 2018-19 season would end.
However it ends now — with Tottenham in a Champions League final against Liverpool — will feel a million miles from those sombre weekend mornings among the cranes and the concrete.
Tottenham manager Mauricio Pochettino couldn't contain his emotions on Wednesday night
Central to a remarkable and unexpected achievement is their charismatic manager Mauricio Pochettino. Strikingly, one thing that did not worry the Spurs board was Manchester United's interest in their manager following the dismissal of Jose Mourinho last December.
While Spurs fans and even some members of the dressing room began to ruminate on the prospect of life without Pochettino, Levy never did.
'We knew he wouldn't go,' said a well-placed Tottenham source. 'It was not even a conversation we needed to have with him.'
Pochettino's influence on Tottenham has been so profound that a move to United would have represented only a marginal step forward in terms of prestige.
In his way — through inspired coaching and a devotion to developing young players — Pochettino has balanced the scales in English football but it has not come easy.
Spurs overcame a huge deficit to beat Ajax and reach the Champions League final next month
Pochettino wept when the final whistle blew in Amsterdam. Only he knows why. He is an emotional man, so it's a safe bet what we saw was the release of years of tension caused by forever feeling as though he was punching upwards — the reaching of another staging post on his journey towards the pinnacle of European football.
There are two great influences in Pochettino's life — his wife Karina and his assistant manager Jesus Perez. Both told him, when he was daunted by the thought, that he must move to England when Southampton posed the question in 2012. Both told him a year and a half later that he must leave Hampshire for Tottenham when loyalty was tugging him hard.
Pochettino can be stubborn but he listens, too. So Wednesday's achievement was as much for those who stand by his side as it was for himself.
