New Town manager Kieran McKenna has been reflecting on the injury which ended his playing career before it had really got started but which has given him a head start when it comes to coaching having taken charge of the Blues aged only 35.
McKenna is the club’s second-youngest manager behind Sir Alf Ramsey, who was a couple of weeks the new boss’s junior when he was handed the reins in 1955.
The former midfielder says he was a regular in the reserves - scoring in a 2-0 win at Portman Road in November 2005 - when his career came to a grinding halt.
"My injuries came, especially my hip injury, at around 20 years of age,” he recalled. "At that stage at Tottenham I was in and around the first-team group, I’d played in some pre-season friendlies, I was consistently training with the first team, I was captain of the reserves and I felt like I was on a really good pathway at that stage.
"I had almost two years of surgeries and setbacks and specialists and disappointments and failed comebacks. It was a really challenging period.
"It was also a period when I learned a lot about myself. I was injured for almost a two-year spell really. I did have to start to examine and think what I wanted to do after football, what I wanted to turn my commitment to.
"It was even in that stage as a player that I decided already that coaching was going to be an avenue that I really wanted to attack that I thought I could be good at.
"So I started to lay the groundwork in that period. I also learned a lot about myself as a person because when you come through that level of disappointment, the setbacks that you have along the way, you learn about yourself and your resilience and your character in difficult moments.
"And, I think it’s a period that I’m proud of in a way because I don’t think at any stage I felt sorry for myself, I had good support around me with my family.
"When I finally had to make the decision to retire, I knew the direction I wanted to go in. Tottenham at the time were fantastic in supporting me and I was out coaching within a week of the last surgery in crutches on the grass working with [at that time academy coach] Alex Inglethorpe, [former academy manager] John McDermott and [then-head of player development] Chris Ramsey and some fantastic coaches.
"In the youth team at the time were Harry Kane and Tom Carroll, who is here, Ryan Mason, Andros Townsend, a really talented youth team, and it just felt right from the start.
"There was no in-between period of sitting at home and sulking and thinking what I might do next, I pretty much was from the surgery room, put the crutches on, put some boots on and get out on the pitch and learn.
"From that moment really, it felt right, it felt like something that came pretty naturally to me.
"I’ve always been extremely driven, extremely hard-working, it gave me something to completely devote all my energy and time to. And from that time I haven’t ever really looked back.
"Obviously there’s nothing like playing, you miss playing sometimes, but I’m out on the pitch, I can still kick a ball around, I love being around football, so I don’t think there have been many times over the last 13 years that I’ve really missed playing.
"Coaching has felt like a natural fit to me and it’s felt like, if there is such a thing as fate or destiny, maybe it was the path which was right for me. No regrets, I’ve loved the journey so far and hopefully it continues.”
McKenna is the second Town manager to have been recruited from Manchester United, Scott Duncan having made a similar move, although in less orthodox circumstances in November 1937.
According to legend, then-Town chairman Captain Ivan Cobbold effectively kidnapped Duncan, his driver bringing him to Suffolk before a Telegram was sent to United to say ‘We have your manager, a case of vintage port is on its way to you’. Duncan remained with the Blues until 1955.
McKenna was asked whether he would have joined Town had Ole Gunnar Solskjaer not been sacked last month.
"It’s a good question, a couple of people have asked me that privately,” he said. "It was an opportunity that I wanted, it was the age I wanted to take it and at and the opportunity that I feel I was ready for.
"[New United manager] Ralf [Rangnick] is not too long in the door, I’ve had a really good relationship with him over the couple of weeks, he was fantastic for me, he took me as a big part of his staff and wanted me to work with him going forward.
"You can’t say because it was a situation which never happened, but I know this was an opportunity that I wanted to take and wanted to come my way, and it did come my way and it felt like the right time and I was just very happy to have taken it and to be here.”