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‘Fair,’ he replies. ‘So, back out here…’

I follow him back out into the corridor.

‘When you have time, you should check all this out,’ he continues. ‘If you start up there, where you come in, there’s the whole Lions timeline, from the early days, taking you through decades of players, stand rebuilds, tournaments we’ve won. You can see all the legends, the board members – and, over here, we have a list of every player who has ever played even one game for Leeds.’

I step back to take it all in. There are over a thousand names on there, dating back a long time.

‘I’m on there, somewhere,’ he says. ‘And this, this is the Leeds Lion head. It’s a lucky charm, to most of us. We tap him on the head before each game.’

He’s referring to a large, mounted metal lion head that hangs proudly and intimidatingly on the wall.

‘Can I touch it?’ I ask him.

‘Of course,’ he replies.

I reach up and place a hand on the cool metal. I swear, I can feel it powering me up, thinking about all the amazing players who have walked along this corridor, all of them still in the artwork somewhere.

‘I love it,’ I tell him. ‘I love all of it – I can’t believe how much detail there is, how much information, a narrative that you can follow as you walk along…’

‘I can’t believe some of the barnets I used to have,’ he jokes, pointing at a small picture of him with a shaved head.

We’re at a doorway now. I look at it, then at him.

‘This takes you through to the tunnel,’ he explains. ‘The away team never get past this point. This area is for Lions only. We’ve got our achievements on the wall because we’re proud of them, not to show off, or try to make the away team think we’re full of it.’

‘You could cover their changing room with it,’ I say with a laugh. ‘Wind them up.’

‘You hear stories, about grounds painting their away changing rooms pink and stuff like that, but ours are both similar. We don’t play games in here, we win them out there.’

I smile. I have a lot of time for that.

‘So the away team goes down there,’ he says, pointing down the corridor. ‘On this side we have Kev’s room – he prints the names and numbers on the shirts, but he isn’t in today. On this side, we’ve got Kath, and she’s a real hero.’

He opens a door and peers inside.

‘Kath?’ he calls out.

‘Hello, my love,’ she calls back.

‘This is Brooke, I’m showing her around,’ he says. He steps aside, so I can look in the room.

‘Hi, love,’ she says to me.

‘Kath washes the kits,’ he says.

Kath is working away in the heart of the laundry room. I’m expecting it to stink of sweat and mud but it doesn’t; it smells incredible, like floral-scented detergent. Bloody hell, they must smell great when they go out onto the pitch.

‘We’ll leave you to it,’ he tells her.

‘See you later, love,’ she calls back.

‘Then we have the doping control room. That one’s obvious – a changing room for female officials, but over here… this is the tunnel.’

I peer down towards the glass doors that open out onto the pitch.

‘Do you want to step out?’ he asks.

‘I’d love to,’ I reply. It’s all great for getting my head in the game, understanding the place, seeing it from all angles and working out what makes it tick.