On Great Lives on Monday afternoon on Radio 4 it was clear that Matthew Paris was a bit at sea. The subject was Celtic’s great manager and winner of the European Cup, Jock Stein, as chosen by the composer Sir James MacMillan. Paris was open about the fact that he didn’t know much about Stein or football in general. Thankfully, MacMillan and former BBC commentator Archie Macpherson were on hand to keep him right.

Archie is always good value and he offered a vision of Stein as a forward-looking football man - the first tracksuit manager - one not interested in the orthodoxies of Scotland’s religious divide.

Not that said divide could be ignored. “I commentated on a game in which I had to admit that the riot after the game was much more entertaining than the actual game itself,” Macpherson admitted.

“Lustrous feeling of hatred,” Paris later said, quoting Macpherson. “Do you know what he means?” he asked MacMillan. “I’m afraid I do. I have the scars to prove it as well.”

But Stein was slightly above what Macpherson called “that hideous normality”. He was, he added, “a big man, a restless, impatient man, which I think is a less pompous way of saying he was a visionary.”

Stein came from a mining background. Indeed, he supported the miners during the 1984 strike. He was also........

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