Early in 2003 I went to the Crutherland House hotel in East Kilbride. I was filming a story about two Old Firm legends who were lending their support to a man that was standing for the Scottish Senior Citizens Unity Party at the Scottish Parliament elections.

John Swinburne introduced his two famous backers: Billy McNeill and Eric Caldow.

Swinburne, as I was later to learn, had attended every match played by Motherwell Football Club in the preceding 50 years. Let me repeat that, he had not missed a game in over half a century. A product of industrial Lanarkshire, Swinburne loved the weekend release that football gave against the often harsh realities of work down the pit or in the steelworks.

He found kindred spirits in his illustrious backers. McNeill was a Lanarkshire man too and a lifelong socialist who had decided to give his support to the cause of dignity in retirement. Rangers legend Caldow was an Ayrshire man, a county fashioned by the land, by mining and farming.

Swinburne, McNeill and Caldow were plain-speaking men. Swinburne was passionate about pensioners, McNeill effortlessly articulate and Caldow carried himself with a quiet dignity. When you meet such people you just know they are the real deal.

In the days before footballers were feted as superstars, men like Billy McNeill would stop and sign autographs as they made their way into the front door of Celtic Park before a match. They were not averse to stopping for a chat, waving to an old school friend, acknowledging a neighbour.

These were the simple but appreciated gestures that said those who wore the jerseys were just like those who cheered them on.

McNeill's death marks the passing of an iconic figure, a man for whom the word legend is, for once, truly appropriate. It is an abused word when applied to the multi-millionaires of 2019 who are frequently here today and gone tomorrow in search of a fatter pay cheque.

And yet in the history of the Scottish game, men like McNeill at Celtic, John Greig at Rangers, Willie Miller at Aberdeen will provide the rich narrative of success that soars over the 'stars' of today who will provide a depressing length of foot-notes defined by relative failure.

McNeill takes us back to a different time. Boys (and there were few women at football back then) were lifted over the turnstile. Language was industrial and fuelled by carry outs of hard, gut-rotting liquor, dispensed from brown paper bags. There were macaroon bars and spearmint gum to eat and chew. The à la carte offering was rolls and spam sold by bunneted men who all looked the same.

These were the days before marketing men, corporate boxes, press officers managing image and brand reputation. It was all so much more real back then, all so much more uncomplicated and all the more genuine for it was defined by men like McNeill.

Our game has changed, marked depressingly by relative failure on the pitch and a different relationship between fan and player off it. Now youngsters idolise people they don't know. In a better yesterday you didn't need to ambush a player for an autograph you simply approached and talked to them.

It's important not to be overly nostalgic. Back in the 1970s football stadia were, by today's standards, unsafe. They were also bastions of male chauvinism. Family entertainment it was not. The paying fan wasn't even accorded the dignity of going to the toilet in comfort. There is something both comical and disgusting about the sight, never mind the smell of a mass 'pee-in'.

Back to big Billy. It was May 16, 2008 and this time I was in his front room waiting to interview him about Tommy Burns. The red-haired Caltonian had succumbed to cancer the night before. Can I get you anything? Tea? Coffee? Do you need me to move anything for the camera? How are you doing, Bernard? There was something really big about McNeill and it wasn't just his physical presence.

In recent days a wealth of anecdotes have appeared about Stevie Chalmers all testament to his fundamental decency. I read one, recalled by a Rangers fan about his Celtic supporting uncle who died very young from an incurable disease. Chalmers was his hero and the young man wrote to him every week. The letters were reciprocated by visits to the young man's home and to hospital. Social media has a picture of young Brian wearing Chalmers' 1967 Lisbon strip. It is the simplest and kindest of gestures that are truly the greatest.

The efforts of McNeill and Caldow in 2003 bore fruit. John Swinburne was elected an MSP in May of that year. Seven weeks before Billy McNeill died, Eric Caldow passed away. Rangers supporters were left with their own, forever cherished memories of a good guy.

Everything in an obvious sense is of its time. Age gives perspective and it breeds and often incubates sentimentality and on that score I am more than a little guilty. But for all its manifest faults I still prefer that better yesterday.

For me, Billy McNeill was the epitome of that gone but never forgotten age.

STV News will have full coverage of Billy McNeill's funeral throughout the day online and on TV.