Keane Lewis-Potter is living his dream in the Premier League, but he avoided the relentless cut and thrust of professional football for as long as possible growing up.
The 23-year-old was one of the Championship's most sought-after commodities at Hull City when Brentford made him the club's record-signing back in the summer of 2022.
Lewis-Potter is Hull-born and bred. He honed his football skills on the streets of Humberside with his friends and caught the eye of his hometown club at the tender age of eight while playing Sunday League football.
The youngster, who has been subjected to media duties on his birthday straight after a gruelling training session in torrential rain, speaks with a maturity beyond his years as he explains the thought process behind that move.
"Every year [Hull] were coming back and asking and asking but I didn't really want to," he tells Mirror Football. "It all felt a bit too serious at the time. I just enjoyed playing football with my friends and having a laugh.
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"I feel like it's maybe changed a bit now but at that time it just felt a bit too serious, going to games and needing to win. I didn't really change on that until that I got a bit older."
At 14, Lewis-Potter's stance softened. After getting yearly calls to gauge how receptive he was to a trial, his love affair with the Tigers started in earnest.
He pinpoints the 2008 Championship play-off final as one of his first proper football memories. He was amongst the sea of amber who bore witness to Dean Windass' crowning moment in a Tigers shirt to secure promotion to the top flight - a moment which has gone down in club folklore. "After seeing something like that you sort of fall in love with the club a little bit more," he adds.
Lewis-Potter joined the Bees for a significant sum in the summer of 2022 (Jonathan Buckmaster)More than a decade later, Lewis-Potter was penning his own legacy with the Tigers. After playing an influential role in Hulls's League One-winning campaign, Lewis-Potter adapted seamlessly to life in the Championship, plundering 15 goals. Naturally, the Premier League beckoned. But that carrot came at a price.
The decision to leave Hull for Brentford 18 months ago ranks amongst the "most difficult" Lewis-Potter has ever made. He explains: "I've still got so many friends in Hull. I grew up there. But the Premier League move came and it's just so hard to turn down; that was my dream, to play in the Premier League. That's every kid's dream."
Lewis-Potter earned his dream move by filling the boots of Jarrod Bowen, who was prised away from Hull by West Ham. Ironically, his career has followed a similar pattern to that of his former teammate.
Bowen is operating in a different stratosphere these days, but his West Ham career was something of a slow burn following the step up. There are stark similarities with Lewis-Potter, who will line up against his old teammate on Monday when Brentford travel to West Ham.
Lewis-Potter turned down the chance to sign for his local club, Hull, when he was eight (Jonathan Buckmaster)"All the young boys who came through at Hull are very close. Playing with him for a bit and training with him was great," he says of Bowen.
"It's tough moving from Hull to London clubs. It's a completely different world. But you look at him, he's got used to the games, to the tempo, and you always know yourself how good you are. He's shown that now for two or three seasons after finding his feet."
He encountered setbacks on the pitch, too. It was a foot injury which prevented Lewis-Potter from hitting the ground running in his maiden season at the Gtech Community Stadium. He then sustained a serious knee injury in January, meaning Lewis-Potter was restricted to just three league starts in total.
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In addition to those injuries, the price of Lewis-Potter's rapid ascent from League One to the top flight in just two years took its toll.
"Coming from the Championship, you know the jump's going to be big. Nobody is that naive; it's going to be tough. But if I'm being honest you only start to fully appreciate that when you start playing in the games.
Lewis-Potter scored his first Premier League goal against Aston Villa back in December (Vince Mignott/MB Media)"You always hope you're going to go to a new club and absolutely fly straight away but that wasn't the case for me. The club have been top with me, though. Not even just in terms of the injuries but adjusting to the move [geographically] and stepping up from the Championship to the Premier League."
Those circumstances meant Lewis-Potter had to wait over a year for his first Premier League goal; that elusive moment finally came in a 2-1 defeat to Aston Villa. He struggles to articulate the emotions of said goal when asked before eventually saying: "That's probably the best feeling I've had in football."
Despite there being plenty of mitigating circumstances behind his wait for that goal, Lewis-Potter admits it instantly helped to relieve the pressure which had built up in his own head.
"I think a lot of different players in my position would maybe say the opposite, but in reality, it did [lift a weight]. I'm not putting myself in the same bracket as [Rasmus] Hojlund for example, but he scores one, then he scores two and he's kept on going. That first one definitely helps."
Lewis-Potter established himself as one of the EFL's hottest commodities during his time at Hull City (George Wood)While Lewis-Potter defines his season on a personal level as "up and down", it's been a difficult one for Brentford as a collective. The Bees have fallen below expectations this season and head into Monday night's fixture against West Ham just five points above the relegation zone. A narrow defeat against Manchester City in midweek means Thomas Frank's side have lost nine of their last 11 league matches.
Lewis-Potter's tone doesn't waver when discussing the club's plight, nor does he shirk such questions. He is steadfast in his belief that the club have no reason to panic.
"We've had a lot of bad luck in games. We know we've played well in some games but then we've had things [go against us]. We've played teams this year where a shot has had two or three deflections and then ended up in the net. You've got to stand up and ride that bad luck."
He believes the club's substantial injury list is also a major mitigating factor when it comes to their struggles. That, in turn, has fed into the team's belief that results would turn when some of their more influential players were in a position to return.
Lewis-Potter's career has followed a similar path to that of his former teammate, Jarrod Bowen (Robbie Jay Barratt/AMA)"It's been tougher for us this year but one of the biggest reasons for that is injuries. There's some big players in our team and obviously having them available is going to help us. People always talk about the big clubs being hit with injuries - no-one's really looked at us and what we've had to deal with. I think there's only one person in the team who's not had an injury this season."
Nobody's absence this year has been felt keener than Ivan Toney. The Bees talisman, 27, has missed the majority of the campaign after serving an eight-month ban but has plundered four goals in six appearances since being reintegrated into the squad.
Toney has averaged a goal every other game since Brentford's promotion in 2021 and has been relentlessly linked with the Premier League's elite. But for Lewis-Potter's money, he's still underrated.
"There's a lot of talk about Ivan, but if I'm being honest I think people underrate him for how good he is. He's got everything. As someone who plays out wide, I don't even really need to look up when I put the ball in the box because I just know he's going to be in the right place.
Lewis-Potter believes Brentford talisman Ivan Toney is still "underrated" by some (Naomi Baker)"His goal record in the Premier League speaks for itself. He's a top, top player. He's such a good lad. He's one of those personalities who gels everyone together in the changing room too."
He puts Frank, the Bees' head coach, in a similar bracket. "It's probably the exact same with the gaffer. He's such a good manager and I think some people maybe under-appreciate how good he actually is. But we don't. We're so happy he's with us.
"When you look back at last season and what we achieved...even some of the teams we beat, like doing the double over Man City. They went on to win the treble; that shows how good the manager is."
Lewis-Potter admits he is revelling in the gruelling nature of the Bees' current Premier League schedule. They travel across the capital to the London Stadium on Monday night hoping to put further distance between themselves and the bottom three.
While this season has been far from the one Brentford would have envisaged a few months ago, for Lewis-Potter, it's been one of progress. He's set personal milestones and is just one shy of doubling his league appearances from the whole of last season. He's also had to come out of his comfort zone, filling in at wing-back during the club's injury crisis.
He's absorbed every moment and taken it in his stride, though. "It's a case of learning and then getting on with it", he replies when asked about such experiences. And he's hungry for whatever other learning opportunities may present themselves between now and May as the Bees look to rediscover their buzz.
He adds: "Going back to the Championship, I used to love the grind of Saturday-Tuesday-Saturday games. That's when I'm at my happiest, when I'm playing.
"It's been tough [on the team] when we play well but don't get results. The season [on a personal level] has been a bit up and down. I started not really playing much but then I had a run of six or seven games in a row where I was starting. I know what I need to do now at this level and there's more to come."
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