One of the few advantages of getting older is that whenever a sporting legend dies, you can reply ‘yes’ when people ask you if you saw the man play. In the cases of both Franz Beckenbauer and JPR Williams, I was able to nod but added ‘don’t ask me for too many details.’ That’s the disadvantage of growing old – your memory doesn’t always work.

I remember seeing Beckenbauer playing for West Germany against Scotland in the World Cup qualifying game at Hampden in 1969. It was one of my first international matches, and my dad had somehow got us seats in the stand, which my mother insisted on as she had heard plenty of stories about the Hampden terraces. On the way home the ten-year-old me raved about Gerd Muller, the scorer of West Germany’s goal, but my dad simply said the best player in white was Beckenbauer. A lifelong admirer of Bobby Murdoch that he was, my dad plumped for Murdoch as his man of the match, but then he usually always did. Murdoch’s late equaliser was a cracker, I recall.

I first saw JPR Williams play against Scotland at Murrayfield in the Five Nations Championship of 1979, having been converted to........

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