The Manchester infant who would become known as “Eric” Nixon underwent two life-changing conversions even before he was out of short trousers. First, his father abandoned his baby boy’s registered names of “Robert David” and began to call him by his own name of Eric. Then his primary school sports-teacher decided to remove young Eric from centre-forward and to play him in goal.

Having considered himself a born striker, Eric refers to himself, in his lively autobiography, as a “manufactured goalkeeper.”

The manufacture would prove sound enough for him to play 657 League games, two-thirds of them for Tranmere Rovers as the centre-piece of a nomadic career that included 10 loan-moves.

In 1986-87 alone, he played in all four divisions, including the top flight for the Saints.

With Tim Flowers out for weeks with facial injuries, Phil Kite nursing a shoulder problem and Peter Shilton breaking a nose, Southampton faced the Christmas period without a goalkeeper and an SOS was dispatched to Manchester City, Eric’s first club. In the four games he played, the opponents included Arsenal, Manchester United and Chelsea. He let in seven goals and only one point was gained, but there is no suggestion that he let anybody down. It was a miserable time of year to be out on loan, yet Eric “loved every minute” and, despite the brevity of his stay, “learned a huge amount from Shilton, the ultimate professional.” A permanent move “would have been nice,” he felt, but hardly realistic, he admits, with Flowers there, understudying Shilton. Instead, Eric went on loan to Carlisle and then to Tranmere, for whom he then signed – to play almost 450 games – including eight at Wembley – as Rovers climbed from Division IV to the second-tier play-offs.

During a second spell at Tranmere, as player-coach, he had a heart attack – at the same age from which his father had died of one. But he recovered to become a personal fitness instructor – first on the Wirral and then in Dubai – amid several posts as a goalkeeping-coach, latterly at Chesterfield, that famous breeding ground for ’keepers.