Stuart Gray will inevitably be remembered at Southampton less for his time there as a player – just 20 games before an Achilles tendon injury intervened – and later coming through as a coach than for his brief ordeal as the manager. Indeed, even his one goal for the club, in an FA Cup replay at Old Trafford, will probably have faded from the memories of those fans who remember that game only for the club’s first-ever penalty shoot-out.

If his playing stint for the Saints – sharing the left-flank with Micky Adams in one way or another – was something of anti-climax to a career in which he had made nearly 300 League appearances, across four clubs, his second coming was an interesting one. He began it as a community officer but then worked his way up through the boot-room, to become the first-team coach, initially for Dave Jones and then for Glenn Hoddle.

When Hoddle left for Spurs, Gray became the caretaker-manager. His achievements as caretaker towards the end of that 2000-01 season had not been impressive – two draws and five defeats – when, with two games still to go, Rupert Lowe outlined his managerial plans to a Fans’ Forum.

With Gray sitting next to him, the chairman stressed the need for continuity.

That meant that – whatever the results of the remaining games: two wins as it happened – Lowe was committed to keeping Gray and his assistant-caretaker, Dennis Rofe: so either an external appointment would be made, of a manager whose boot-room must include Gray and Rofe; or, if nobody could be recruited on those terms, the positions of Stuart and Dennis would be made permanent. It is not known whether any external candidates refused to retain Gray and Rofe. What is known is that David Moyes, Preston’s successful young manager, was interviewed and that the stumbling block to appointing him was not a matter of support-staff: the Board could not match his salary-expectations.

When Gray was allowed to spend £700,000 to bring in Anders Svensson, that fuelled speculation that the job must now be his.

It was soon announced that his appointment was permanent. But not that permanent. Eight games into the season, the Saints lost at West Ham, watched by Gordon Strachan, who promptly succeeded Gray, bringing Garry Pendrey with him, while retaining Rofe. Lowe had turned his back on continuity and had set in train a repeated turn-over of managers. A disappointed Gray “felt let down, losing the job so early into our first season at St Mary’s.” As he saw it, The Dell had been “a fortress, an intimidating place for teams to come and play. St Mary’s, with its wide open spaces, took that away and we struggled there, at first.” The Saints’ problems in adjusting to the “wide open spaces” were documented at the time, in Full-Time at The Dell, but that does not explain why The Dell was less than a fortress for Gray. That said, Stuart has remained a well-respected coach. His posts have included re-uniting, here and there, with Jones or Hoddle – and the two of them, in turn, at Wolves.

Later, he rejoined Jones at Hillsborough. Amid all of which, he has maintained a special form of continuity on the home-front. His wife is a teacher in Hedge End, so Stuart has continued to live in Hampshire. That made it easy for him to take up a post at Fratton Park, which ended with him as a caretaker-manager for the fifth time. Then at Sheffield Wednesday he became an interim manager for the sixth time before landing the job permanently before, incredibly,he stepped temporarily into the breach at Fulham. More recently he has settled back to being Scott Parker’s number two 2 at Craven Cottage.