“I once hit a six in very murky conditions to win a game which got us promoted.” Nigel Martyn is lost in a reverie. The former England, Leeds, Everton and Crystal Palace player was English football’s first £1m goalkeeper, chalked up 846 club appearances in a career that spanned three decades, went to two World Cups and played in an FA Cup final. But it is a smear over long-on in the Yorkshire gloaming that has him misty-eyed.

“Wow. I remember that feeling was … yeah. That was as good as any feeling that I had on a football field.”

Picking up on a whiff of incredulity Martyn begins to explain himself. “It was right down to the wire, I think we had one wicket left and it was almost pitch black.”

The game was in Cookridge a few years ago. Martyn, now 59, was playing for Leeds Modernians in the Airedale & Wharfedale senior cricket league. “The ball before I had not seen at all. I decided to just swing at the next one and somehow I really middled it! If I close my eyes I can almost feel it now.…