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“And then I scored, so some of them Hibs fans must have been cursing me.”An even more remarkable display of support, he adds, had come when a banner reading “Get well soon, Stubbsy” was unfurled by the fans at an Old Firm match By the Rangers fans He was watching on telly. “To see that, out of all that sectarianism, all that hatred… that was a special moment.”We are talking in a portable building at Bellefield, the Everton training ground. Last summer Stubbs left Celtic for Everton, the team he had followed since he was a nipper. At a time when so many Everton traditions were imperilled, he revived one – that of the lion-hearted Scouser at centre-half, which extends back from Dave Watson to Mick Lyons to Brian Labone and beyond. Moreover, the defensive understanding between Stubbs and David Weir was one of the reasons Everton pulled away from the relegation zone towards the end of last season.Another of the reasons was the new manager, David Moyes, who chose to drop Stubbs for a home game against Fulham. He has yet to regain his place, so it seems unlikely that he will play today at Goodison Park, against the champions, Arsenal.

And surviving testicular cancer, not to mention having his bowels removed and put back, has not greatly altered his perspective on football. Chemotherapy, it seems, doesn’t stop you being as sick as a parrot.”The manager spoke to me [about being dropped], but it doesn’t matter how they put it. He gave me one or two reasons, and I didn’t think they were true. So I had my things to say, he said a couple of things, but as far as I’m concerned it was forgotten about a day later.

These things happen in football and we’re men, we should be able to take it on the chin. Anyway, football has a strange way of giving you another chance, and I’m going to get one when Davie [Weir] is suspended in a couple of weeks.”It can be risky playing for the club you support. I ask Stubbs whether he is worried by the example of Gary Speed, another boyhood Evertonian who ended up being booed by the fans and left acrimoniously?”No, if I ever did have to move on I’d have the same affection no matter what. In Gary Speed’s case, he actually wanted to go, and a lot of Everton fans were disappointed because he’d said he’d been blue from a kid. They probably expected a bit more loyalty.”Stubbs’ devotion to Everton has already ridden the nasty jolt of being released as a youngster. He was on the books from the age of 11 until he was 13, but was let go, and snapped up by Bolton. When Bruce Rioch arrived as manager, bringing Colin Todd as his assistant, Stubbs’ game blossomed “I worked with Toddy quite a bit.

His knees were scarred at the front and back, but even in training he never gave the ball away. He never used to move much but he didn’t have to, his passing and vision was so good. I thought ‘bloody hell, he must have been a class player’.”"Bruce was more approachable, although you’d be scared of doing it at times, scared of going to his office, because he’d be sitting behind his desk and he’d go ‘come in’ and look up over his glasses, and you’d think ‘oh God’. He was tough if you got on the wrong side of him, but if you did well for him he’d look after you in all sorts of ways, like taking the wives out, he believed in all that sort of thing. He was a big influence on my career.”But Rioch left for Arsenal and in due course Stubbs felt he too needed a move.