Football is littered with defining moments that serve up valuable lessons.
For Raith Rovers boss Neill Collins, one of those came as he escaped a life-threatening fire.
It is just over a year since the bus transporting Barnsley back from a 1-0 victory away at Exeter developed a serious problem travelling on the M5 motorway.
After players noticed flames coming from the rear, the driver quickly pulled off the road. Within minutes, the coach was engulfed in flames.
It was a frightening experience for Collins, who was only three months into his managerial reign at Barnsley.
“Every football season is quite unique, in the things that you think would never happen that seem to transpire,” Collins told Courier Sport. “And that was definitely one of them.
“I’m so glad that we’d won that day. We’d also scored a last-minute winner, so the bus was actually in great spirits.
“It’s quite hard to describe but, within five minutes, the bus was totally blaze.
“The most important thing was that people were safe. But literally, for maybe three or four seconds, we didn’t know if we were going to get off the bus.
“We couldn’t get the door open. But then, quite quickly, we did get off.
“We had lads on the motorway with no shoes on. It was that quick to get off, but we lost a lot of stuff.”
Once all the players and staff had escaped and been led to safety, thoughts turned to the items that had been left behind.
And that is where the valuable lesson comes in for Collins, who lost years of work in the October 7 blaze.
“I lost my American phone and a hard drive and the personal items that can’t be replaced,” explained the former Tampa Bay Rowdies head coach.
“There was loads of stuff on that hard drive that I had to leave behind.
“It was things that are just always nice to have, like presentations I had made to the lads over the years, post-match and pre-match.
“They’re always nice to have as reference points and just to recollect. I lost a lot of those kind of things.
“I’ve learned the hard way that I should back things up.
“It’s just one of those things that you kind of kick yourself about. that you maybe weren’t better prepared.
“You think should I have just grabbed my bag? But you would have really felt foolish if something had happened and you’d been trying to grab your bag.
“The main thing was everybody got off that bus.”
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