On 6 May 2009, Sandy Davie was walking towards the 10th tee of his local golf course in Tauranga, in the Bay of Plenty, New Zealand, when the club secretary stopped him to announce that he had just been reported murdered. He had emigrated to New Zealand in 1974, after spending his 20s playing professional football in England and Scotland.

Ted Bates, with his penchant for Scottish goalkeepers, had gone to buy Davie in 1967, but came home with Eric Martin, instead. Many a British team went to the USA that summer to the guest, en bloc, as an American club in the newly-formed NPSL. Dundee United masqueraded as Dallas Tornado. Three years later, Sandy, by now at Luton, did sign for Bates – but found Martin “hitting a purple patch”. So he was needed only once, and beaten five times, at Old Trafford. In a second spell at Tannadice (see scrapbook section), he won a runners-up medal in the Scottish FA Cup, but he emigrated, a few weeks later, to New Zealand. He qualified, by residence, to become the national goalkeeper, making 32 appearances, if you count games against “Select” XIs. He then undertook a variety of coaching responsibilities – with youths, goalkeepers or trainee coaches – in Queensland, Australia and in three US states, before returning to his adopted country in 1997, where he became goalkeeping coach for New Zealand’s men and head coach of the women’s team.

While in Queensland, he had lived in the town of Burleigh. When a Scot called Alexander Davie was brutally murdered there, Channel 9 reported that the police had formally identified the body as that of the former “All-Whites” goalkeeper and coach. TVNZ took up the story, shocking its viewers and leaving Sandy Davie, who never did make it to the 10th tee, wondering when somebody from Candid Camera was going to “come out of the bushes and say ‘got you!’” Alive and well, Sandy continues to play golf at Tauranga.