Bolton Wanderers head coach Steven Schumacher stood on the Wembley turf with a tear in his eye and a lump in his throat and with half a national stadium singing his name. Asked for his immediate reaction, Schumacher described winning the League One play-off final as the biggest achievement of his career. Even allowing for swirling emotion and recency bias, it was a significant statement.

But you could see Schumacher’s point. Bolton had been in League One for five years. At first they were breezing through, then stopping by, then rebuilding. By the end supporters wondered and worried that roots were sinking into soil in the third tier. Years of financial turmoil had been replaced by the pain of coming close and failing.

After five years of Ian Evatt, one season of Schumacher got it done. That may seem simple from the outside. The manager is happy to concede that it was nothing of the sort.

“I felt the pressure that was building around the club,” Schumacher tells The i Paper.

“It had to be that season. Because if we didn’t achieve that promotion, I’m not quite sure what this season may have looked like. That’s why it was the biggest achievement for me: you were dealing with expectation.

“When you come after a manager who’d been there for so long and hadn’t managed to get over the line, it was always going to take time for us to change how the players thought, change how we trained, change how we went about games and also tried to justify the owners’ faith and why they employed us.”

Bolton are back. Or at least: Bolton are back in the Championship for the first time in seven years, which is symbolic after the economic apocalypse that enveloped the club. The anecdotes from that period are grim, none more so than Phil Mason having to create a food and feminine hygiene products bank for staff members who weren’t being paid. Mason is now the chief operating officer.

Recovery shapes people psychologically. It creates an emotional early warning system. It generates a “never again” mandate that becomes a fixture above every door.

But it can also be incredibly wearing. A football club is never just a football team, but having to think solely about bottom lines and austerity measures just to get back to where you once were isn’t always exactly fun.

Promotion back to the Championship is proof of on-field recuperation, but more than that it is proof that the phenomenal work of Sharon Brittan and Football Ventures was worth it. At its best, it allows a club to think about football for a bit.

“It is going to be nice not talking about all that,” Schumacher says.

“It is just going to be good to focus on football and try and figure out what this club needs now from an investment point of view, from a playing staff point of view, from a coaching staff point of view.

“What do we need now to keep trying to improve and to keep trying to take the next step, which is going to be competing, sustaining and hopefully progressing up the Championship table?”

The fly in that ointment? The old worlds change in your absence while you are trying to plot a route back. The ground beneath your feet shifts or, to be a little more blunt: have you seen how much money Championship clubs are spending on transfer fees and wages these days?

Bolton lost £14m in their last published annual accounts. They are reliant upon owner funding (as are most). They are now entering an environment with more on offer but more capital usually required to do it. League One is the division in world football with the most complicated prize for promotion: the chance to lose more money chasing an even more unlikely dream.

To put just how challenging this season could be, let’s put it into context: 15 different Championship clubs have this summer spent at least £4m on an individual transfer fee – Bolton last spent £1m on a transfer fee in 2013. Lincoln City are the only club with shorter odds to be relegated from the Championship this season – Lincoln finished 28 points ahead of Bolton in League One.

Which is fine, on a basic level: Bolton obviously want to stay up but they will not – cannot – risk their financial future further. But that comes with another caveat: hardwired expectation.

Bolton supporters I have spoken to are incredibly grateful for their owners, those who work behind the scenes and those who literally saved the club from dying. They understand that this season will be difficult and, yes, they do not want the club to overspend. But gratitude is a difficult emotion to keep at the forefront of your mind when the game itself demands ambition from supporters and insists that standing still is moving backwards.

For Schumacher, who clearly understands all of the above, there is only one answer: honesty. Football fans have an unerring ability, sculpted over time, to spot bullshit a mile off: from players, managers, writers. You cannot hoodwink them for long and they will not forgive easily if you do.

“I hope that’s what I’ve done since the day I walked through the door,” Schumacher says.

“The football club is honest. I’m the first to hold my hand up and say, we got that wrong, or the first to say things are not quite working well.

“I’m from Kirby, on the outskirts of Liverpool, where I don’t think people take it too well if you’re not honest. I hope that Bolton fans can see that with how we communicate. We try our best every single day and if it’s good enough, brilliant, and if it’s not, well, it wasn’t for the lack of trying. Hopefully that relationship continues this season, which I’m sure it will.”

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Bolton had no exclusive right to get back into the Championship – they learned that over their half decade in League One. They have no exclusive right to stay there either. Their tale of implosion is not unique and does not buy them extra points, even if it might produce a little extra patience. The gap is daunting. I hope everybody understands that.

But I also hope this season, however it shakes out for Schumacher and his squad, provides enough moments for supporters where they can take a step back and appreciate the journey and the effort in a wider context.

Realism is rarely sexy and rarely sells easily. Recovery is a slog and too often the thanks you get is “What next?” On the eve of every season, you root for certain clubs and managers. Bolton and Schumacher are two of mine. They are back in the Championship. I hope that they are ready for a different type of storm.