Desmond Reece-Fry was a centre-half good enough, people at the club still say, to have played in the Elite Division — until a knee injury at nineteen ended it before it started. His son Callum turns nineteen this year.
Desmond attends every training session he's permitted near, keeps a personal spreadsheet of Callum's touches, tackles and positioning per game, and reviews it with him most evenings. He calls it support. He isn't wrong that Callum's technical numbers have improved.
What the spreadsheet doesn't track: Callum has been sick before three of his last four U21 matches, hasn't told his father, and confided in nobody at the club until a youth coach happened to notice.
Sheffield Blades' welfare staff are now involved, carefully, aware that the person applying the most pressure is also the person who has sacrificed the most to get Callum this far.