Peter Shilton was, by any reckoning, sensational. And not just on the pitch. Rather than rattle off a long list of his records – and maybe toss in a tabloid headline or two – let’s focus on a few facets with a Saints-related dimension. First, he was one of those goalkeepers who scored in open-play, just once in his record-breaking 1005 League appearances.

It happened at The Dell in October 1967, when he had just established himself as first-choice at his home-town Leicester City. His clearance bounced once and flew over the head of Southampton’s keeper, Campbell Forsyth, to seal a 5-1 away win. Forsyth’s excuse is discussed in his profile. Interviewed for the Saints’ Official History video, Shilton describes it as “just a complete fluke,” assisted by the wind. Secondly, nobody has been capped more times than Peter, as a Southampton player. In his five seasons at The Dell, Peter won 49 of his record-125 caps, 15 of them as captain. Goodness knows how more international matches he might have played for England, had he not been alternated so often with Ray Clemence, who would win 61 caps.

Even so, Peter’s overseas appearances, including his European adventures with Nottingham Forest, helped him to achieve a world record for the most competitive appearances as a professional footballer.

Forest were the third, and Southampton the fourth, of five clubs for whom Peter played more than 100 times. His visit to The Dell with Forest in April 1981 gave the fans at the Archers Road end a chance to revel in the fact that, off-field, Peter was mortal and could be “stupid and irresponsible,” as he puts it in his autobiography. It was by now six months since he had made the headlines in what he describes as a drink-driving incident, while giving a woman a lift home. But for the “scandal writers”, as he brands them, the story was the married woman in his car at 5 a.m. Which is why he had to tolerate a robust rendering, from the Archers Road chorus, of “does your missus know you’re here?” It would be some time before the nation-wide chanting stopped.

Meanwhile, Peter continued to run up records at Forest. Medal-wise, Peter’s five seasons at The Dell were an anti-climax – runners-up in Division I and three semi-finals – but he “enjoyed his football immensely,” there, and told fellow-goalkeeper, Bob Wilson, that he never “played any better than… at Southampton.” It was during this time that he was appointed MBE, an honour upgraded to OBE in 1991. After leaving his fifth club, Derby County, he player-managed at Plymouth, where he experienced relegation in 1992 from the Second Division. Having then stopped playing, he managed Argyle to the third-tier play-offs in 1994. He left, the following season, to become a player again at five clubs in turn, although he turned out for only two of them – once for Bolton and nine times for Orient, where he made his 1000th League appearance, and then five more, before retiring at the age of 47. All of which was a testimony to a goalkeeper described by Wilson, in his book on ’keepers, as

“perfectionist, dreamer, loner, workaholic; arrogant, intolerant, dedicated, selfish, intense… with a totally single-minded ambition to be acknowledged as the best goalkeeper in the world.”

In recent years, Peter has succeeded as an after-dinner, and motivational, speaker, commanding fees in the £2000-to-£4000 bracket. In 2010, he was a celebrity in Strictly Come Dancing.