Like his compatriot, Ivan Golac, a season earlier, Ivan Katalinić decided to take advantage, as soon as he became 28, of the law, in communist Yugoslavia, that kept players in the country until that age. After trials elsewhere, he signed, like Golac, for Southampton, becoming the first Croatian to keep goal in England’s top flight (in 2022 he remains unique). Despite an interruption for military service, Katalinić had won four League Championships and five Cups with his home-town club, Hadjuk Split, and had been capped 13 times by Yugoslavia.

Unfortunately, there were hiccups, reflected in the alternative and probably unfair coinage of “Katastrophic”. Which explains why Kevin Keegan was urging the manager to sign a ’keeper in order to maintain the side’s top-of-the-table momentum. With ironic timing, as Keegan left in the summer of 1982, Lawrie McMenemy made the biggest-possible goalkeeper-signing: Peter Shilton.

For the first season-and-a-bit, he played second fiddle to Peter Wells, making only spasmodic appearances. In October 1981, however, he took over for the rest of the season. His four clean sheets in November won him a national newspaper’s “Golden Glove” award and, among some fans, the nickname of “The Kat”.

Ivan thereupon returned to Hadjuk Split, since when he coached prolifically in Europe – mainly within the former Yugoslavia – and the Middle East. He has met with much success, examples being leading Split to third place in the Croatian top flight – their best ever finish and taking minor club Dugopolje to promotion to the second tier for their first- ever time. He remains the only person in Split history to have won the double as a player and a head coach. Finally in 1998 he received the Order of the Croatian Interlace which is a national honour which was given to coaching staff members of the Croatian national team for winning the bronze medal in the 1998 World Cup.