Leon Cort talks through a smile, but with a slightly reticent air, seemingly on the verge of disclosing something secret.
His time at Crystal Palace “started very well,” he says keenly, without alluding to how it ended. “It was good for me, personally,” he adds, side-stepping his time more widely. “I felt it went very well,” he repeats, “but it didn’t end the way I wanted it to.
“It all exploded.”
Cort began his time at Selhurst Park as he followed manager Peter Taylor from Hull City to south London. The pair first met when Cort’s older brother, Carl, also a professional footballer, encouraged Leon to join the former England Under-21 manager and learn from his stewardship.