With his swashbuckling 'tache and loping, slope-shouldered gait, Graham Gooch was for two decades English cricket's most formidable figure.
Smacking boundaries from the meat of a bat so substantial ordinary mortals would have required heavy lifting gear just to remove it from his bag, he bludgeoned his way to the very pinnacle of the game, scoring 8,900 runs in 118 Tests, still the most any Englishman has accumulated.
Nearly 15 years on from his retirement from Test cricket, you might expect to find him rather protective of his record. Gooch, however, works tirelessly day in, day out in a personal quest to find someone, anyone, who might topple him from his lofty perch.
Every year, he subsidises, to the tune of £30,000 of his own money, a cricket academy in his county town of Chelmsford, a school responsible for unleashing the talents of Alastair Cook, Ravi Bopara, James Foster and Graham Napier on to the game.
And right now, the man so keen to see his own record overhauled is in the best place possible. He is in South Africa, acting as batting coach to the England team, waiting for the first Test to start on Wednesday at Centurion.
Except, far from sounding thrilled by the prospect, today he sounds as if he is spiralling into a vortex of gloom. Never in possession of the bounciest of verbal deliveries, the hint of despondency in his voice as he talks from his hotel room is enough to dim the lighting 5,000 miles away. Though, as it transpires, this is nothing to do with the present condition of English cricket, or indeed anything to do with cricket at all.
"Please don't even mention it," he says when the subject of West Ham's decline into the Premier League's relegation places is raised.
"I hate to admit as much in public, but I was first taken to see them by my dad more than 50 years ago. I've seen all the greats. They are right there, in my blood. So this hurts. It really does."
This is the thing about Gooch: for him sport matters. Patriotic, loyal, so fiercely committed a limpet would be pushed to match his tenacity, he has an unflinching emotional attachment to his favoured causes.
West Ham, Essex and England are tattooed on his heart, though not necessarily in that order. Which was why, when his old Essex protégé, England coach Andy Flower, invited him to South Africa to work as specialist batting adviser, he was on the plane quicker than you could say Gianfranco Zola.
"No coaching in the world can beat playing," he says. "Playing is the ultimate challenge, putting yourself on the line against the best opposition. But if you can no longer do that, helping others to do so is as good as it gets."
Though perhaps not on the day we speak. "I'm in East London and it's a bit depressing," he says. "Not the place, the weather. I wanted to get out there and get to work with the players, but you're limited when you have to go indoors.
"You want the sun on your back, but this is an awful day, gusty wind and the rain's coming in off the ocean. If this is the summer, anyone coming here for the World Cup next year had better pack their water proofs."
Gooch should have known what to expect. He has previous with South Africa. He was there in 1982 captaining a boycott-busting rebel tour, which he almost immediately came to regret being involved with, not least because it resulted in him being banned from the England side for three years (imagine how many Test runs he would have accumulated had he not been persuaded to go).
"I've been back a couple of times since with Essex and the game is very strong here," he says. "Yes, there are well-documented issues on quotas, but they were until very recently number one in the world. They still produce tough, competitive, talented cricketers."
Several of whom – thanks to their misgivings about a quota system which critics suggest places positive discrimination above talent – Gooch is working with in the England team.
"I have no problem with [Jonathan] Trott and KP [Kevin Pietersen] playing for England," he says.
"Obviously I am a very patriotic Englishman, but I don't think anyone could claim they are not 100 per cent focused and committed on performing for their adopted country."
Trott, in particular, seems to have caught his eye. "He's really impressed me. He is a player with a lot of promise and mentally strong, and like KP he doesn't seem remotely concerned about the issues of playing in his homeland.
"With those two playing there is a real balance to the middle order. With them coming in after [Andrew] Strauss and Cook and with Colly [Paul Collingwood] too, this is a powerful side England have."
Which begs a practical question: if they are that good, what exactly is Gooch in South Africa to do? How can a coach assist a bunch of players already at the peak of their game?
"These are good players. That's a given," Gooch says. "But they have to believe not only that they are good, but they are going to get better. The coach's job is to create an environment where that sense can be nurtured. There is no magic formula. But the most important thing is to create the mindset that every player has to take responsibility.
"When you step over the white line you are on your own. The coach doesn't walk out with you. He doesn't tell you whether to go forward or back, he doesn't tell you whether you should be hooking or ducking. You have to do it yourself. The coach is there to put everything into place to make those choices easier to get right. And in my experience the smart player is the one who takes information from everyone to shape his own game."
So what did he take from coaches when he was playing? "Well, I never blamed Mickey Stewart or Kenny Barrington or Allan Lilley if I got out."
The history books insist that the man now helping England is the finest accumulator of runs we have ever had. But a glance at the Premier League table suggests that personal playing credentials are not necessarily the first requisite of a good coach. While Sir Alex Ferguson and Arsène Wenger, modest players both, thrive, a magician like Zola is struggling. So does Gooch feel his own ability is a strength or a hindrance?
"I'd agree that the best player doesn't necessarily make the best coach," he says. "But there is no reason why a good player shouldn't be able to do it. It depends on a person's character. I see my role at Essex – and that's what I'm trying to do with England – as trying to improve run making.
"That's different from batting. Everyone can be taught to be a batsman. But can you apply that technical ability to make runs? That's the question that makes players. And it's a question of mentality. Are you able to adapt to different situations, different days, different stages of the game? There is a lot more to it than just talent."
But does he feel that his experience remains relevant to the game today?
"The game has moved on since my day, of course it has. When I was playing, in a 50-over game a score of 250 was reckoned good. Nowadays it's 300. The bar has been raised significantly. Scoring rates have got quicker in Tests too and it is the advent of Twenty20 that has changed the mindset. There's a bravery about chasing scores now, players have got more ambitious."
So what attitude can he bring from the old days?
"One thing that has not changed is the basic game plan. Make a big score and bowl the opposition out twice. And in a long chase the mindset is still the same: bat to the next session, then see where we are, then go for the win.
"The Aussies were doing that at the Oval [in the final game of the Ashes]. What a game that made it, it kept fluctuating: will they get there, won't they?
"I was doing the commentary on the radio and I was so nervous. For most of that innings you weren't thinking, 'oh there's too many for them to get', you were thinking, 'oh heck, they might'. For me that is the glory of Test cricket. That extended tension."
The question for England followers is this: can that tension be extended beyond the Ashes? In 2005, the momentum of victory quickly dissipated. Will England go once more from heroes to zeroes this time around?
"In the short time I've been with the party, I sense they are very aware of that," Gooch says. "There's great determination, intensity and commitment. I'm impressed.
"2005 was such a nail-biter. Everyone got caught up in the celebrations and maybe things didn't go on from there as we would have liked. This time, I feel they are determined not to let the momentum go."
And, as Gooch surveys them from the dressing-room balcony, does he think his endless search might soon be over? Does he believe the present side have within them someone capable of overtaking his own magnificent record? "I don't see why not," he says. "All they have to do is believe."
Quick question...
Lillee or McGrath? I only played once against Glenn McGrath, so maybe I'm biased, but for me Dennis was the biggest hearted cricketer ever, a formidable opponent. He did me so many times, including on my debut when the joke was coined about how convenient it was that I had my first Test score in my surname.
Brooking or Di Canio? For me, Brooking was the most cultured international footballer of his age. I like teams with playmakers and he was the best I've seen. I loved Di Canio, mind.
Lily Allen or Lady Gaga? I don't think I've heard either's music. I'm a Van Morrison man. And Gary Moore. My partner bought me tickets for a Gary Moore concert recently and I felt right at home: the audience was made up of blokes over the age of 55.
Ron Greenwood or Harry Redknapp? Oh, come on, given my background, that's impossible. I like Harry, he's a great bloke, and in this day and age a shining light as an English-born manager in the top flight. But when I first watched the Hammers, that great Sixties side, it was Ron who put it together. I'd like to sit on the fence and say both, but if you push me, I'll have to plump for Ron.
- Daily Telegraph