In any ranking of Southampton’s “funny men”, Ale-House team-mates, John McGrath and Brian O’Neil, would surely be very near, if not at, the top.

But whereas McGrath became a stand-up comedian, much in demand as an after-dinner speaker,

O’Neil was more of a comic actor, whose reputation has relied upon team-mates’ anecdotes about his antics. Although he could be eccentric – as on the day he ran out at The Dell, wearing a battered trilby, for a bet – many O’Neil stories depend more upon his lack of inhibition – or even of convention, notably with regard to his appearance, including clothing and footwear.

He had hardly signed for Ted Bates in 1970, before he was on the Saints’ tour of the Far East, getting his hair cut in Colombo, in a manner that earned him his nick-name of “Buddah”. And he was travelling remarkably light – so he “borrowed” the trousers of his room-mate, Terry Paine and admits that he then went “on a bit of a spree and peed them” in a Kobe bar. That story has been especially well-documented, but there are many more where that came from. There are two good reasons why they need not be told here. First, Jeremy Wilson has compiled so many O’Neil anecdotes in his Cult Heroes, mainly as relayed to him by Brian’s good mate, Denis Hollywood.

Secondly, it would be a pity to detract from the serious point that Brian was a very good footballer, who served Southampton splendidly. He had arrived at First Division Burnley from that rich north-east seam that Jack Hixon tapped for them – as he later would for Lawrie McMenemy. Capped at U-23 level in 1966, he was in Alf Ramsey’s initial squad of 40 for the 1966 World Cup finals. But he lost out to Nobby Stiles as midfield-enforcer in the final 22.  After 11 seasons at Turf Moor, a club-record fee of £75,000 brought him to The Dell for what Brian considers to be “the best time of my career.”

Ever-present in his first season, he cut a singular figure: baggy shirt outside his shorts, socks around his ankles, just above his boots. Or, more to the point, somebody else’s boots: he freely admits that he “never had a pair of boots in my life.”

He did have his own shoes, but would sometimes turn up for training in dung-splashed wellies, having come straight from mucking-out Cathy Jane, the mare he jointly owned with Mick Channon. As hard as nails, his combative midfield play and long-range shooting ensured cult status among the fans and the admiration of his team-mates. When Paine picked his Saints XI from his contemporaries, he chose Brian to be his “grafter: somebody who can win the ball…

Brian O’Neil had the guts and determination to do that” and he always “put his heart on the line.”

And Ron Davies reckoned he was the best player there had ever been in mud.

If it would have been fun, even so, to watch Brian on today’s Premiership’s surfaces, you have to wonder how he would have coped with its rules. For a start, he would have been required, literally, to pull his socks up; and goodness knows how many suspensions his “grafting” would have incurred. As it was, he served a record-breaking nine-week ban in 1971-72. He survived the 1973-74 season in which McMenemy succeeded Bates, but McMenemy was determined to be rid of an off-field culture, in which O’Neil so often played the court-jester.

Brian departed early in the following season for Third Division Huddersfield. Relegated with them, he was a regular in Division IV in 1975-76. He then had a few non-league seasons in the south, before finally hanging up his (or a team-mate’s) boots. He took up a different form of “grafting”, as he describes it, “digging holes, pipes, drainage, that kind of thing.” Then, in the late 1980s, he went back to his roots, where he helped to train racehorses.

That ended when he was involved in a vicious assault that left him in a coma for three weeks, precipitating a return south. He then lived just up the road from where The Dell used to be, and was sometimes be spotted at St Mary’s and turned up for a book signing of “All the Saints” in 2013 with a couple of old mates (see below), all while he likes to keep in touch with his old love – by frequently visiting Channon’s stables – he is devoted to a new love: his grandkids, including the children of his daughter and her partner, ex-Saint David Prutton. He has in recent years moved to Harrogate to be near his family.