If Matt Le Tissier was the repeated hero of the Saints’ “Great Escapes” of the 1990s, Neil Ruddock merits a special place among the club’s escapologists for his act of bravado on April Fools’ Day 1989. Having recently arrived from Millwall, Neil was playing only his sixth game for Southampton when he stepped up to the spot. Having gone 17 First Division matches without a win, the Saints were in the relegation zone.

So, too, were their visitors, that afternoon: Newcastle United. With the score at 0-0, Southampton were awarded a last-minute penalty. Derek Statham, their spot-kick man that season, was missing and Neil “could see that not too many of our lads fancied it.” So, as he explains in his autobiography, he grabbed the ball, “even though I wasn’t a penalty-taker.” He scored and then celebrated with what would become known as the “Ruddock Stomp”. In the next game, he scored twice at Middlesbrough in open play, but he then missed two penalties in quick succession. That didn’t matter: the side climbed to 13th place; and Matt Le Tissier was waiting in the wings to become the Spot-Kick King. And there was so much more to Neil’s game, anyhow – his cultured left foot, his strong tackling and his power in the air, all backed up by the self-confidence he had shown on that April afternoon.

When Ian Branfoot arrived in 1991, Neil had his ups-and-downs with him, the messy details of which are recounted in his autobiography. He left for Tottenham, with a tribunal determining a fee of £750,000, way below his “market value” – as was demonstrated when Spurs sold him to Liverpool, a year later, for £2.5m. Neil prospered at Anfield and was capped by England – just the once in 1994. After leaving Liverpool at the age of 30, Neil still had 70-odd League games left in him, latterly as player-coach at third-tier Swindon. That engagement ended acrimoniously, but Neil came out best at an employment tribunal.

Since when, “Razor Ruddock” – a nickname borrowed from the boxer, Donovan Ruddock – has become a an after-dinner speaker and a TV celebrity. Some of his TV work has been football-related – from his many contributions to A Question of Sport to such well-intentioned programmes as one that included coaching kids and another that aimed to demonstrate how an involvement in football could be a life-changing experience. On the other hand, there were Neil’s appearances on reality-TV shows, such as I’m a Celebrity… Get Me Out of Here,Celebrity Big Brother and Celebrity MasterChef. In September 2013, Neil’s celeb-status was confirmed when his second marriage to his long-time partner, model Leah Newman, received a six-page spread in Hello! magazine. He is never far from the news – in 2019 his weight had ballooned to 25 stone, twice what it was when he had started playing and he embarked on a successful diet which the tabloids followed with great interest.