Mick Mills became a Southampton player in 1982, when Ipswich – his home for 17 very successful seasons – released him to relieve their financial woes. He had started as an apprentice there in 1965, after cutbacks had forced Portsmouth, the club he’d joined from school, to abandon their Youth and Reserve teams. What seems to have gone unrecorded is that he might have joined Southampton at that point. Ted Bates had invited several of the Pompey discards to train and Mick remembers that this was his first acquaintance with his future England colleague, Mick Channon – the two of them would make their debuts v Yugoslavia in 1972.

Mills evidently did not catch Bates’s eye and he ended up at Ipswich, captaining them to FA and UEFA Cup-wins. Having led his country in the 1982 World Cup finals, Mick was “surprised” to be made surplus to Ipswich’s requirements. He nearly signed for Sunderland. A 2 pm press conference had been scheduled, but an 8am call from Lawrie McMenemy intervened.

Joining Southampton was, he reckons, one of the best decisions of his life.

Whether he lined up at right- or left-back – “I’m right-footed, but preferred the left” – Mick’s unflappable professionalism contributed hugely to Saints best-ever season of 1983-84, when they finished runners-up in the League behind Liverpool. On a personal level he was also awarded the MBE in the 1984 New Years Honours list (see scrapbook section).

Mick remains a big fan of McMenemy’s “unique style of blending youth with seniors” and reckons that “he got me fitter at 33 than I’d ever been.”

After two seasons, McMenemy asked him if he felt fit enough for a third. He did. After which, he thought it time to step into management. On McMenemy’s advice, he applied to Stoke, just relegated to the Second Division.

His managerial career proved to be considerably shorter than his playing days, though. He has kept busy with media work, writing a weekly newspaper column, being a director of a Sports Management company and becoming the Suffolk Ambassador/Patron for the Sir Bobby Robson Foundation. In October 2013, he was awarded an honorary doctorate at University Campus Suffolk for services to football and charity work.