The details, below, of Claus’s career say it all. While so many post-war footballers have dropped in at Southampton during a global tour, Claus Lundekvam came from his one and only Norwegian club to play for 11 seasons with his one and only English club, becoming one of the select band of players who have topped 400 appearances for the Saints. Even though he spent his last two seasons in the Championship, no other Norwegian has played as many Premiership games as Claus.

Graeme Souness’s £400,000 investment in cultured, elegant and unruffled centre-back was most certainly money well spent.

An absolute rock in a Southampton defence that fought almost an annual battle to avoid the drop from the Premiership – successfully so, until 2005 – Claus became the club captain. Nicknamed “Silky” owing to his stylishness , coupled with his unhurried and smooth passing from the back, it was a apt sobriquet and one he was happy with. Speaking in 2005 he said “I guess it’s because I’m very relaxed and laidback and have a somewhat good technique”. He was forced to retire in 2008 after three operations on a dislocated ankle. He was granted a testimonial, for which Gordon Strachan, one of Claus’s many former managers, brought a team from Celtic.

Capped 40 times by Norway, Claus did not immediately go back there. He remained in Southampton, where he experienced problems of addiction to alcohol and cocaine, as he attempted to fill “the huge mental void” of being without the weekly “buzz” of “performing in front of thousands,” as he put it in an extensive 2012 interview with the Norwegian journalist, Lars Sivertsen. Claus was remarkably candid in that interview about his addictions, evoking memories of the book-length confessions of Arsenal’s Tony Adams and Paul Merson.

Claus reveals that some of his Southampton team-mates and he would “hang out” in London with players from Arsenal and Chelsea, socialising with celebrities in circles where drugs, especially cocaine, were in “free flow”.

He eventually tackled his addictions by booking into the Sporting Chance Clinic, started by Adams, and speaks highly of “the amazing job” that Adams has done there. Although he has retained a flat in Southampton, he has returned to live and work in Norway, becoming a pundit in Bergen for TV2, which has the Premier League rights.

Claus only scored twice for Saints, provoking Strachan to claim that when he went up for corners, Claus should be booked for time-wasting. Each of his goals – v Wolves in 2004 and v Cardiff in 2006 – was against a side managed by another of his former Southampton managers, Dave Jones. “He took it personally”, Claus says. These days Claus is never far from St Mary’s either physically taking in a game or spiritually tweeting his support for the club he professes to love.