Growing up, all Frank Lampard wanted to do was play for West Ham. By the age of 23, he would smile when his boyhood club lost.
And if there were West Ham fans inside Stamford Bridge tonight when Lampard's Chelsea welcome the Hammers, you can bet they'd tell their former player the feeling is mutual.
It's been nineteen years since Lampard left West Ham back in 2001. He went on to prove to be quite good at football and not, as some had harshly suggested, just a fat kid picked on nepotism.
Nevertheless, to some West Ham fans, he will always be 'Fat Frank', no matter what shape the Chelsea boss is in, and chants of 'You Fat B******' are sure to ring around either Stamford Bridge or the London Stadium whenever Lampard and Hammers fans are reunited.
But how did it come to this? Well, it all started when a 14-year-old Lampard joined the West Ham academy in 1994... while his father, Frank Lampard Snr, was assistant manager of the first team.
After breaking into the senior squad aged 17, Lampard faced accusations of nepotism from minute one, and it didn't help that his uncle, Harry Redknapp, was also the manager.
Redknapp was famously forced to defend Lampard from questions of favouritism after his first-team debut, telling a disgruntled West Ham fan that his nephew would 'go right to the very top'.
However, things never really got better for Lampard and no matter how well he performed, he was always judged on a different barometer.
Lampard actually had a decent career at West Ham, scoring 38 goals in 187 appearances as a young player.
The former midfielder admits he was a 'chubby kid', but he was never the lazy, out-of-shape player that some West Ham fans perceived - quite the opposite.
Jose Mourinho has described Lampard as the best professional he has ever worked with - and there are stories of how he would spend hours after training working on his running, to ensure it didn't hold him back.
But still, large sections of fans would taunt him about his weight and his connections at the club, to the point where it became oppressive and personal.
"Being Frank Lampard's son brought with it different rules to those which apply to every other player," Lampard Jr explained in his autobiography.
"A section of the support believed I wasn't good enough for the starting line-up so I was put on the bench as some kind of favour.
"And they let me know this every time I moved to do a warm-up."
In fact, Lampard claims some West Ham fans even cheered when he was carried off the pitch with a broken leg in 1997, something the Chelsea boss says made him consider giving up football altogether.
It wasn't just the fans, though, Lampard was furious with Terry Brown for his treatment of his dad and uncle, who both left the club after falling out with the West Ham chairman in 2001.
Lampard's agent vowed he would never play for the Hammers again, and according to him, he left the club feeling 'gutted and betrayed'.
Still though, given he had already developed a decent reputation as a goalscoring midfielder, Chelsea were willing to pay £11m for his services - big money back then.
And Lampard quickly set his sights on revenge. He scored seven goals in 20 appearances against West Ham on his way to becoming the greatest goalscorer from midfield in Premier League history.
Revved up by barrels of abuse from the Hammers faithful, Lampard would give as good as he got whenever he scored against West Ham, and the bad blood just spiralled out of control.
Lampard went a far as to say that the treatment from the fans made him start to root against the club he supported as a boy.
He wrote: "I remember when Joe Cole first came to Chelsea he would turn away in disappointment if West Ham lost. I would smile.
"That's how deeply I felt. I wanted West Ham to lose. Now I don't even look for their results."
As a manager, though, Lampard is yet to enjoy the same catharsis he did as a player.
The Chelsea boss has lost both games against his former club, much to the delight of Hammers supporters.
It's what makes tonight's game a grudge match, and Lampard might not admit it, but he will be desperate to win, while West Ham would equally love to pile more misery on the Blues boss.
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