Stuart Ripley arrived at Southampton with a reputation as a powerful winger, who could deliver dangerous, swirling crosses to order – as manifested in an impressive record: more than 400 games for his native Middlesbrough, followed by 200-odd for Blackburn, where he was a regular in their 1995 League-championship side and was twice capped by England. Following the £7m-sale of Kevin Davies to Blackburn, Southampton could afford £1.5m to bring the 30 year-old Ripley in the opposite direction.

With hindsight, though, the investment has to be questioned. There were flashes of the form that had won him England recognition, but injuries and disciplinary problems – his sending-off in a Reserves match, for punching an opponent, kept him out of the crucial last three games of 1998-99 – meant that he never found favour with the fans. Stuart managed to play in just over half of the Premiership fixtures that season and the next, but then had two loan spells, hardly starting for the Saints.

He retired in 2002. While at Blackburn, he had studied “A” level French and sought, in retirement, to take a degree in modern languages at the University of Central Lancashire. But that would have required a year abroad which, as he put it to When Saturday Comes in September 2012, was impracticable for a family man. So he had to pair French with another subject in a Combined Honours programme. He chose Law and graduated with a First Class degree in 2008. “I left school at 16, as I had a pro contract at Middlesbrough,” Stuart explains on the university’s website, “but promised my dad [a teacher] that I would complete my education when I retired.” His unintended study of law has served him well. Having qualified as a solicitor, he joined the major Lancashire law firm, Brabners Chaffe Street, working on football issues in their sports-law department.

Appointed onto the FA’s judicial panel, he was a part of the three-man regulatory commission that found John Terry guilty, in 2012, of using abusive language, with a reference to colour, towards Anton Ferdinand. He left Brabners to become a lecturer in law studies. In 2019 his son Connor, a goalkeeper signed a three and a half year contract with Preston North End having spent much of the previous seven years seasons on loan at various clubs including Oxford, Burt, Bolton, Motherwell, Accrington Stanley and Burton Albion.