The influence of his mother on Nathan Dyer was both genetic – she was a capable amateur sprinter – and tribal: he grew up in Wiltshire, following Manchester United, because his mum “fancied Bryan Robson.” But he was spotted as an eight year-old by Rod Ruddick, who honed his skills at the Saints’ Bath satellite.

The main strength that young Nathan developed was, in his own words, “running with the ball and at players.”  He could do that with scorching pace – he clocked 11.3 secs over 100m at school – and on either flank or through the middle.

What’s more, he top-scored for the Under-17s.  He first appeared on the radar of those Southampton fans who follow the teenagers coming through, with his sparkling form in the run to the FA Youth Cup Final in 2005.

Nathan played in both legs – alongside Theo Walcott, Leon Best, David McGoldrick, Martin Cranie and Lloyd James – in the side that lost to Ipswich, 3-2 on aggregate. Harry Redknapp soon handed Nathan a first-team debut in a League Cup victory over Southend United. He responded with a goal and a Man-of-the-Match performance.  As he approached his 18th birthday, the manager decided that Nathan might experience more Championship football with Burnley than with Southampton. But after only five appearances – and two goals – Nathan was recalled by Redknapp’s successor, George Burley, and played fairly regularly. Following a frustrating 2006-07 campaign, he began the next season in great style, scoring with a stunning curling shot at Watford to register his first League goal for the Saints.

Thereafter, he struggled, hardly helped by the rapid turnover of managers or by a series of niggling injuries. In and out of the side, he responded by going out more. Which is how he came to be caught on CCTV, among a group of half-a-dozen lads rummaging through staff bags at a Portsmouth night-club.

The incident was much-publicised, not least – as Nathan pointed out in a remarkably candid Observer interview in 2012 – because the only participants arrested were the two Southampton footballers: he and Bradley Wright-Phillips. As the club lurched towards administration, Nathan was well out of it on loan at Sheffield United and then, for the second half of 2008-09, at Swansea, recently promoted to the Championship.

While still officially a Saint, he scored for the Swans at Fratton Park in an FA Cup-tie. “A sweet goal,” he says, with obvious relish.

The move to Swansea was made permanent when Roberto Martinez paid relegated Southampton a knock-down £400,000. Having missed promotion by a whisker in 2009-10, Swansea went one better, the following season, beating favourites Reading in the Championship play-off Final.  Nathan’s all-round game prospered at Swansea, where, as he explained to the Observer, he began to “mix it up”. In that 2010-11 promotion campaign, he featured in all 49 games, starting all bar one of them, and was voted the fans’ Player-of-the-Season.The quality of Swansea’s football in their first season in the Premier League was much admired and their manager, Brendan Rodgers, was voted the Sky Sports Manager-of-the-Season for 2011-12. It was a quality to which Nathan amply contributed, missing but four matches.

He signed a new four year contract in 2013 but in a piece of perfect timing joined Leicester for a season’s loan in 2015 and we all know what happened next, although his contribution to the Premier League title being won was modest but enough to claim a medal. He returned to Swansea and was still featuring in their 2019-20 squad, a decade after first arriving at the Liberty stadium.