Lounging by the pool on a pre-season trip, the penny dropped with Gordon Smith that he was never going to live down the moment which made him famous worldwide.
As Manchester City's players enjoyed some down-time between games in Kuala Lumpur, a young Malaysian autograph-hunter weaved between sunloungers on the hotel pool terrace collecting signatures, examining each one like a passport officer at the border.
When Smith obliged with his eminently legible squiggle, the boy's face lit up and he exclaimed: “Ha! You are Gordon Smith? How you miss in the Cup final?” Dissolving into fits of laughter, Smith's team-mates fell off their sunbeds in uncontrolled mirth.
