The departure of Antti Niemi in January 2006 left Southampton’s manager, George Burley, with a goalkeeping problem. He soon replaced Paul Smith with new signing, Bartosz Bialkowski, but he was side-lined by injury after only five games. Having briefly resorted to Smith, Burley sought an experienced replacement. Acting on the advice of his goalkeeper-coach, Malcolm Webster, he approached Kevin Miller, a retired ’keeper, who was working in corporate hospitality in London.

He played in the last seven games of that 2005-06 season. The side won five of those matches and Kevin, who looks back upon this unexpected stint as “a bonus”, accepted a further year’s contract.

But Kelvin Davis’s arrival, come the summer, meant that Kevin became the third-choice ’keeper and he was soon heading west – to Torquay on loan and then home to Falmouth. He would now keep goal for Bodmin Town, in the Carlsberg South West Peninsula League, while becoming involved in football-in-the-community coaching, working in local schools and opening up a development centre for Exeter City, the club that had launched his extensive League career, back in 1989. He was still playing for Bodmin up until he was appointed joint manager of Exmouth Town in September 2017, a role he relinquished the following January.