Having become a professional footballer relatively late in life, Paul Jones was 30 when he was ever-present in 1996-97, in goal for Stockport County, as they won promotion to the second tier and – arguably more significant – knocked Premiership Southampton out of the League Cup.

Stockport’s manager, Dave Jones, then took over at The Dell, come the summer, and promptly brought in goalkeeper, Paul, who had just won his first cap for Wales.

Paul still looks upon 9 August 1997 as the highlight of his career, when he walked out for his Premier League debut. Ever-present that season, he was the fans’ Player-of-the-Year.

His efforts were also appreciated by Southampton’s managers. In his first five seasons at the club, he missed only 19 Premiership matches, as Dave Jones was succeeded by Hoddle, Gray and Strachan, in turn. When doubts were expressed, they concerned his coming off his line and even his kicking; but you will be hard-pressed to find a critic of his shot-stopping.

One of his most memorable point-blank saves was, in fact, a double-save – from Teddy Sheringham in a 3-3 draw at Old Trafford in September 1999. Paul was unaware of how good a save it was until he saw it on Match of the Day, although he still rues the fact that United scored, anyway.

But, then, this was the game in which United’s Massimo Taibi let a shot from Matt Le Tissier through his legs – abiding memories of which reinforce Paul’s view that goalkeepers are “remembered more for our mistakes” than outfield players. Early in his sixth season at Southampton, Antti Niemi succeeded him and Paul played in barely a third of the season’s League games.

The “low point” of his career was being consigned to the bench for the FA Cup Final –

even though he came on when Niemi was injured, making him the first substitute-goalkeeper at that stage of this competition. In January 2004, he was loaned, for two games, to injury-struck Liverpool, whom he’d supported as a boy. He thus became their oldest-ever debutant. Soon after which, he returned to Wolves, his first professional club, again joining manager Dave Jones and becoming the first player to appear for three different clubs in one Premier League season – a possibility subsequently outlawed by the introduction of a two-clubs-per-season rule. His last appearance for Wales, a 5-1 defeat by Slovakia in 2006, was his 50th international, which he marked by having “50” and two dragons shaved into his hair.

He then had three seasons as Wales’s goalkeeping coach. Paul has latterly run a goalkeeping school near Chichester, which aims to give naturally-talented youngsters “the discipline required out on the pitch.” An active supporter of Chestnut Tree House, a children’s hospice near Arundel, he is a patron of the Hampshire Autistic Society.