The mystique can fall away in the presence of legends when, as is often the case, they turn out to be much more down-to-earth than you ever imagine.

So friendly and at-ease are people like Bobby Parker, Bobby Owen and Trevor Swinburne when you talk to them that you can momentarily forget you are speaking to Carlisle United royalty.

The privilege, though, never fully fades. It was special to spend ten minutes chatting to Parker in the Blues’ 74/75 lounge last weekend, just as it was rolling back the misty old years with his fellow top-flight icon Owen a few weeks before, and sharing in Swinburne’s 81/82 promotion memories.

Carlisle have welcomed those heroes and more as their guests to Brunton Park at recent games, and more such visits are planned. It is an extremely welcome and, being frank, overdue development at the Blues to see such a regular and embracing fuss being made of some of their greatest.

Paul Simpson has missed very little since returning to United and this happened to be one of the umpteen areas he highlighted along the way: there were times in the past, he said, when former players didn’t feel welcome at Brunton Park, and that would never do while he was here.

If that had indeed been the case, it ought to shame the regimes involved. Thank goodness United, in conjunction with fan groups and given further proactivity by the excellent supporter liaison officer Simon Clarkson, are righting this wrong consistently this season.

A few steps onto the pitch, a wave, a tour of the lounges, the boardroom, all the rest. It’s the least a club should do for its former stars.

Bobby Parker may appear a normal, friendly soul – which he is – but there have been few defenders more gifted on that oblong of Cumbrian turf across all the decades, all these years. He and his peers should always be celebrated, saluted, put on their rightful pedestal.

A club in healthy touch with its past has a better chance of embracing its future in the right way, too.