So, why go back? For some it’s a case of heart over head.
Steve Cotterill returned to hometown club Cheltenham Town after 23 years last month.
The 61-year-old, who led the club into the Football League in 1999 and returned with them bottom of League Two, said the Robins “will always be in my heart”.
“I would know most weeks within an hour of the game ending, wherever I’ve been, how have Cheltenham got on, who’s their team – that hasn’t ever left me,” he told BBC Radio Gloucestershire.
“When I’m not working, I’ve been down to watch games.”
If Cotterill’s return after more than two decades away evokes the feeling of a fairytale, then Chris Wilder’s third coming at Sheffield United feels more like the correcting of a mistake.
Wilder led his hometown club from League One into the Premier League in his first spell between 2016 and 21 and then guided them to 90 points and the Championship play-off final last season in his second stint.
He was then surprisingly sacked and replaced by Ruben Selles in June, only for the Spaniard to lose all six of his games in charge and Wilder to be brought back in September.
When asked by BBC Radio Sheffield if he would have said ‘no’ if it had been “any other football club”, he said: “Possibly yeah. This is a special and unique club for me.”
The Blades welcome Watford on Saturday, with the Hornets back under the management of Javi Gracia for the first time since he replaced Paulo Pezzolano last week.
The Spaniard had, by Watford standards, a long spell in charge from January 2018 to September 2019 in his first time in the hottest seat in English football.
