I spent years making sure Harrison Delaney never got the better of me on the pitch. Now the transfer has dropped us into the same team, same dressing room, same long shadows under the floodlights, and the rivalry feels like it is about to swallow us whole.

He is the only one who sees the terror I hide behind every tackle, the need to be kept that I will never voice. Every time our eyes meet in the corridors the old hatred turns into a pull I cannot fight, and the thought of him claiming what I have always denied wanting burns hotter than any fear of the chairman finding out.

Tonight I stop two paces from him in the empty center circle. He tells me to close the gap.