Wee Jinky, or "Sparra", as Jock Stein sometimes addressed him in his vexatious moments, was an ultramobile menace who was capable of manufacturing and distributing mayhem among defenders to order Players both educated and neanderthal were delegated to blunt, by any means possible, the wickedly serrated edges of those skills. Their success rate was severely restricted for, in essence, they had been psyched out long before the event. To look into their eyes in advance of kick-off was to recognise fear in its most primeval condition. Well, what the hell did a full-back do with a mesmeric manikin who, if he felt in the mood, could organise the rupturing of people's sinews simply by arching his eyebrows and dipping one shoulder?

The tragic death of Jimmy Johnstone at 61 years of age presses a multitude of memory buttons, of course, but it is perhaps fitting to begin with those wonderful, halcyon days when the Trade Descriptions Act would not have been traduced had he been smothered in the most outrageous hyperbole.

Now, the supporting cast was of stellar proportions.

Bobby Murdoch, Billy McNeill, Bertie Auld, Bobby Lennox and latterly Kenny Dalglish possessed sublime qualities themselves, but the reality was that Johnstone, by the very fact that he sold tickets, fixated audiences and debilitated opponents, was the bonus package and thus, as often as not, was awarded sole occupancy of the star's dressing room.

Genius, of course, is rarely dispensed without an attachment of conditions, and there is inevitably a confusion to be tossed into the mix.

Johnstone's confusion was alcohol. He could bodyswerve any human being on a football pitch, and yet he could not sidestep a pint of lager.

If he could attain nights of on-the-field perfection, such as the one when he virtually dismantled the soldiers of Red Star Belgrade in the European Cup in order that he would not have to play in the return (he had a chronic aversion to flying), then he was just as likely to trade in imperfection away from his chosen place of work.

He achieved this with a regularity that enraged the likes of Stein and Scottish managers such as Willie Ormond.

It was only in the last few years that Johnstone took the first strides towards recovery by admitting that he had a major problem. He came to recognise and be thankful for the stalwarts in his life, particularly his wife Agnes, and his friend and former Celtic director Willie Haughey, and the work they had done on his behalf.

"It's miraculous that Agnes has stuck by me after all I've put her through, " he admitted a couple of years back. "I have hellish remorse. By rights I shouldnae be here. Considering the people I got involved with in certain situations, the things I did and the things I said, I could have had my throat cut." Haughey was similarly commended. "I was on my way out, losing the house and everything. Willie put it all right for me."

Johnstone's stand against the insidious motor neurone disease that eventually would kill him was impressive. Not once did he ask for pity and, if he wept, then they were private tears. He faced up to an unbeatable opponent with a fortitude that is displayed only in the bravest of men.

Unlike those footballers he had tormented decades before, Johnstone did not surrender. Instead, he held an immutable belief that one day stem cell research would alleviate the sufferings of this terrible disease which locks lively minds into the wreckage of human bodies.

His sense of humour, perhaps his greatest ally during those dark days of adversity, never wavered. Indeed, when he was on a show on BBC Radio Five, Eamonn Holmes likened him to Elvis and Sinatra. Johnstone was silent, but only for a moment. "Was that me you were talking about, then?" he asked. "God almighty, I've not come down [from the ceiling] yet." When Holmes thanked him for establishing a radio link with him, Johnstone added:

"Thanks for talking to me, son! It's been a pleasure."

The pleasure, believe me, was all ours.