When Wolverhampton were relegated from the First Division in 1984, their goalkeeper, John Burridge, was out of contract and making demands. Rather than meet them, the club brought in 17 year-old Tim Flowers. He played regularly for a season, and in spells the next, as Wolves experienced two further relegations.

Moreover, they were on the brink of bankruptcy and obliged to realise assets such as their young ’keeper. Which is how he came to play for Southampton’s Reserves, on loan, in March 1986 and then to sign for the club at a knock-down £70,000. At 19, he was coming not just to understudy Peter Shilton but to benefit – as he has explained in Derick Allsop’s compendium of football’s “Voices”– from the way in which “Shilton worked with all the goalkeepers every single day… I’d never seen anything like it.”

His first chance to deputise for Shilton came in a 5-1 defeat at Old Trafford. And when his second chance came along two months later, he received severe facial injuries, while letting in the final goal of Arsenal’s 4-0 win at The Dell. When Shilton left for Derby, come the summer, Chris Nicholl signed none other than John Burridge, whose personal training routines had taught him so much at Molineux.

For his part, Burridge had “thought the world” of the teenage Flowers and was impressed by his development at The Dell.

Even so, Burridge saw himself as “the top dog on paper.” Yet he had to wait until Tim took the can for a 4-0 home defeat, by Everton in October 1987, before he achieved that ranking for real – until the end of the following season. After that, Tim was now undoubtedly the top dog.

In his third season in possession – 1992-93, the inaugural Premiership campaign – he was ever-present.

He won the first of his 11 England caps, in Washington DC v Brazil, in the summer. His dozen appearances at the start of 1993-94 took him past Shilton’s total, to leave him second only to Eric Martin in goalkeepers’ games for Southampton, post-war (though since overtaken by Kelvin Davis). Whereupon, Blackburn bought him for £2m – then a world-record fee for a ’keeper – as Jack Walker’s millions built the team that would win the Premier League in 1995. When Blackburn were relegated in 1999, Tim remained in the Premiership with Leicester. He suffered a serious hip injury and, following several loan spells in 2001-02-03, made a final appearance for Leicester, coming on as a substitute back where his career had started: at Molineux.

He now retired and accepted a coaching position at Leicester, under Micky Adams. He then had spells as assistant-manager to another ex-Saint, Iain Dowie – at Coventry, QPR and Hull, in turn – interspersed with some goalkeeper-coaching, latterly at Northampton Town, where he had one match as caretaker-manager. He also had three spells coaching at Kidderminster before in June 2018 he landed his first permanent contract as a manager in his own right when taking over at Solihull Moors in the National League. He did well saving them from what appeared to be certain relegation in his first season and then leading them to their best ever finish the next so it was a bit of a surprise when he left in January 2020 with the decision said to be “mutual”. He has since “done the rounds” managing a succession of non-league teams without staying too long with any of them.