What Matt did next

THE frame has thickened somewhat since his peak playing days, but the walk remains unerringly familiar.

Yet it's not really a walk. Come to think of it, considering he was once a professional footballer, memories of him running are amazingly few and far between.

No. Matthew Le Tissier ambles.

On a football pitch, it was regularly to wondrous and quite devastating effect.

In retirement, the body language remains instantly recognisable.

On this day he is appearing alongside BBC's Ray Stubbs and Mark Lawrenson to answer questions from Saints fans in an evening organised by Carlsberg to promote the FA Cup.

Le Tissier is at the Mick Channon Suite at St Mary's and is immediately the centre of attention.

It is mostly children, but there are also plenty of adults who will treasure an autograph or a photograph with the greatest of Saints' modern heroes.

It strikes me that many who gather round him are now probably too young to remember Le Tissier's very best between 1992 and 1995 when he scored some 72 goals (mostly of the spectacular variety) in three seasons.

Yet this younger generation have no doubt already heard the stories and seen the goals which will forever live in Southampton folklore.

Many have also probably seen him in the flesh in some capacity since that memorable night at St Mary's almost three years ago when he finally did draw down the curtain on his 17-year Saints career.

Le Tissier continues to live in the area and has since been the recipient of many impressive honours as well as some more unusual acts of respect.

Most notably, he followed in the footsteps of former Prime Minister David Lloyd George in being awarded the freedom of the city.

He has also been an ambassador for Saints, guest of honour at the England international at St Mary's, and is proud holder of an honorary degree from the University of Southampton.

Le Tissier was even recently nominated in a poll of greatest living southerners alongside the likes of Jane Austen, Florence Nightingale and Isambard Kingdom Brunel. All that, and he has had a pub, a road and even a racehorse named after him!

So, three years on, how is Matthew Le Tissier and what's he doing now?

"I'm very well," he says. "I'm working with Sky Sports, playing plenty of golf and going to the Channel Islands quite a bit, so life's good.

"I haven't missed football, to be honest. I've adapted my life and I'm very happy with it. I had a great time and it was great while it lasted.

"I enjoy the camaraderie of Sky and we get a bit of banter on the golf course so I've not really missed it too much."

As a pundit and an architect of several 'great escapes' during the 1990s, the obvious question is how he rates Saints' chances of beating the drop this season.

Speaking after the 3-1 defeat against Chelsea, Le Tissier was optimistic with the team then still outside the relegation zone.

"There are a few new players," he said. "That gives everyone a gee-up in the whole squad. I've always been fairly optimistic.

"I think the ability in the squad is there and I've always fancied our chances when anyone has asked me if we will get out of it."

Given Le Tissier's surprising lack of international opportunities, it feels almost insulting to raise the possibility of Peter Crouch's inclusion in a future England squad.

Crouch has been superb for Saints and could offer something completely different, but any comparison is, in horse-racing terminology, akin to weighing up the respective merits of a promising two-year-old against a multiple classic-winning thoroughbred.

"The amount of goals he has scored has surprised me a little bit," admits Le Tissier.

"He was always going to be a threat but the one question-mark was his goals-per-game ratio. But since he has been here and Harry has believed in him he has done fantastically well.

"I'm sure Peter will be the first person to admit he is a fair way off England at the moment, but if he does it over a sustained period of time he will have every chance.

"He will always cause a threat in the air, but he has got more to his game than just aerial strengths as he's pretty useful on the ground as well."

The highs and lows of Le Tissier's unique career have, of course, been well rehearsed.

From joining Saints as a schoolboy in 1985 to that spine-tingling finale at The Dell, no one has worn the red and white stripes with such style.

Former Saints team-mate and England captain Alan Shearer simply says: "I don't think I have seen anyone as skilful when he has the ball at his feet."

Le Tissier, though, was content to bow out at the end of the 2001/2 season when, in his own words, his body was screaming and not just telling him that the final whistle should be blown.

He said he had no interest in becoming a manager and appeared happy to make a clean break.

Yet beneath the laid-back exterior, a lifelong love for playing sport still obviously burns away.

He made a handful of appearances for non-league Eastleigh, co-managed by ex-Saints team-mate David Hughes, and continues to play football on a casual basis, including various testimonials and the annual Masters tournament. Le Tissier also played in a few beach football competitions.

Most interestingly, though, he is planning to take a coaching course.

Le Tiss to become Le Boss? It appears unlikely at this stage and it is difficult to imagine him wanting to inhabit the rather obsessive world that managers must live in.

Yet his personality and presence could be ideally suited to inspiring footballers in a coaching role, probably with strikers. A record of 209 goals in 462 starts (often from midfield), after all, commands instant respect.

But he is non-committal when discussing the possibilities of a new career in coaching.

"Nothing has come of it at the moment, but I'm looking into taking my coaching badges at the moment and when that's done I may look to do that," he says.

"At the moment I'm just enjoying the media work so it's really as a fall-back option. It's nice to have that fall-back of having some badges behind you.

"I've not set myself any goals."

Three years after ending his football career, you sense Le Tissier remains happy to enjoy his life and continue to weigh up the long-term possibilities.

He set up the 'True Greats' website with Francis Benali, he was apparently a possible contestant on past series of I'm a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here and Celebrity Big Brother, and he has caddied for professional golfer Richard Bland.

"My goal now is to get my golf handicap down," he smiles.

"That's something I'm working on but it's not something that is working too well at the moment. The handicap is five.

"It's been that for the best part of two years or 18 months. I got down from eight to five quite quickly and it's stopped, but I'm still working on it.

"It's getting hard now - I'm a bit too erratic to get much lower than that. I try to hit it too far."

Le Tissier, though, does himself a disservice when he suggests his life is one big round of golf and television studios.

As an ambassador in and around the city, he is superb.

Lawrie McMenemy is perhaps the most comparable figure in the Southampton area and both are tireless workers for charity.

Le Tissier is a vice-president of the Wessex Cancer Trust, but a simple flick through the archives of the Daily Echo demonstrates just how many good causes and organisations he has supported.

Charities helping the blind, the deaf, babies, youths, Southampton General Hospital, people with stress, people with heart problems, foster care, orphans, leukaemia sufferers and multiple sclerosis are just some of those to have benefited from his backing.

He has also regularly presented awards at schools and has opened everything from local shops to Hampshire's badminton headquarters.

"You fit in what you can and sometimes you have to say 'no' to people," he says.

"That's something I've had to learn to do because I couldn't possible do everything I'm asked, as much as I'd like to.

"It is hard sometimes. You just have to hope they understand that you do have a life apart from turning up at functions to help people. You have a family life and sometimes that takes precedence."

I reassure him that people do understand. After all, he is probably the most popular person in the whole of Southampton.

He laughs at the suggestion and the phlegmatic response is typical of a man who always seemed pretty much the same whether he was scoring the goal of the season or being ignored by the likes of Graham Taylor, Terry Venables and Glenn Hoddle.

"It's good most of the time - occasionally it can be not so good, but you take the rough with the smooth," he shrugs.