Barry Bannan says he wants to be at Sheffield Wednesday for another 20 years, a year on from the club’s darkest moment.

Bannan first joined the Owls in the summer of 2015, becoming a firm fans’ favourite and ultimately club captain.

A decade later, he found himself foregoing time in the swimming pool with his children on a family holiday in Turkey to join a Zoom call with then owner Dejphon Chansiri to discuss when players and staff could expect to be paid again.

By October 24 of the same year, Chansiri was out, and the club had entered administration.

“Sometimes you have to reach rock bottom to come back again, and (administration) was that point,” Bannan told the Press Association in an interview 12 months on.

Bannan says he “learned a lot” from those last months under Chansiri where players and staff increasingly became reliant on him for answers – and often he had no answers to give.

“It made me a better person, a better captain, a better leader, because you have to listen to individuals, whether it’s a staff member, whether it’s a player, their problems, and normally the problems that you have as a captain would be football-based and easy to deal with, because you’ve been there and done it,” he said.

“But when it’s something that’s out of your hands, you’ve still got to listen and find a way. As hard as it is to take positives from that time, I think I’ve come out of it as a better person.”

The uncertainty around Wednesday’s ownership and direction affected Bannan personally.

Conversations with individuals connected to the initial preferred bid convinced the 36-year-old that, difficult though it was to accept, his future lay elsewhere, and so he joined Millwall in January.

Bannan likens being away from Wednesday for the first time in almost 11 years to cheating on a partner. He lived alone in London, spending time at his family’s home in Nottingham where he could.

His two-year-old son Wilf drew comfort from sharing the spare room with his dad on the nights when he was back at home, and Bannan can remember the heartache of having to tear himself away early on Thursday mornings to get to training.

“I’d literally be 15 minutes out the door, and my wife would text me saying, ‘he’s at the top of the stairs crying and asking for his daddy,'” Bannan said.

Bannan has nothing but positive things to say about the “amazing” people at Millwall, but jumped at the chance to return to Hillsborough this summer after the David Storch-led takeover was complete.

With the club stabilised and going well in League One, the fan favourite hopes he can stick around for another 10 or even 20 years.

“This is my home,” he said.

“In January I left, but I always knew that I would be back here one day. I’ll finish my football career here, whether it’s the end of this season or three, four more seasons if given the chance.

“I’d like to go into coaching, management, whatever it may be, I feel as if with my relationship with the owner that hopefully I get a chance to work here in the future as well when my career does finish.

“If I could be here 10, 20 years further down the line, it would be amazing for the whole family.

“The sky’s the limit for the club. If it keeps going the way it’s going with David in charge, I think it’ll go from strength to strength.”