When the Hartlepool United job became available in December, Graeme Lee had more to consider than a long-held ambition to manage.
The 43-year-old's wife, Gemma, has an inoperable brain tumour. She had been given 12 months to live. That, however, was more than two years ago.
In November of 2020, Sportsmail visited the Lee family home in Middlesbrough to mark a year to the day since the terminal diagnosis.
We found Gemma full of fight and, most significantly, life. The mother of Grayson, nine, and Hadley, six, had refused palliative care and, through a cocktail of drugs, had stopped the growth of the tumour.