In assessing Stan’s career, you might inevitably be drawn to a quote from his team mate at Brentford, Bob Booker “We classed players like him as luxury players, as you were essentially playing with 10 men, but if he was on form, you were playing with 12.” Yes, you do sometimes have to remember the rainy Tuesday nights at Stoke, when Stan didn’t fancy it. Football wasn’t the most important thing is Stan’s life, why should he bother his arse 100%?

But, when he did fancy it? We fell in love with football.

And it was because of players like him, you were excited. You suddenly stood up in the front room. You laughed and you cheered. You created a lifetime’s memory. Only footballers like Stan Bowles could do that to you.

And for someone who was never quite in love with football as much as football was in love with him, Stan Bowles still managed to play 507 games over a 17-year career. The problem with Stan – and the reason you either loved the bloke, or you never quite warmed to him – is that he didn’t quite give his all to football.

Admittedly, he took all the kicks, all the hacks, and was still able to survive all those years. It was that supreme balance, that acceleration, which enabled him to move in an instant away from the most ferocious tackles. He still did all these things in the name of football. But he didn’t apply his life and mind wholly to football. There was always something else:

“I take football as an avenue to different opportunities. Football is not using me; I'm using football.” In Stan’s case, the different opportunities were often to be found at White City dog track, or any bookies around Shepherd’s Bush.

Stan Bowles was a prolific gambler and, as is the wont of most prolific gamblers, ended his career with significant gambling debts. In his autobiography, he estimated that he had lost £750,000 to gambling during his career.  Bowles’ gambling was known at an early stage of his football career, as QPR attempted to mitigate for it by paying his wife and most of his regular household bills, and granting Stan some pocket money. But Stan’s vice was an addiction; something that was never recognised in the 1970s. It was until Paul Merson’s very public breakdown and confession in 1994, that we saw the very real that harm that gambling could inflict upon a human being, never mind a football career.

As for the “immediate aftermath of Wednesday 15 May 1974”, Stan walked out on England. Caretaker boss, the “avuncular” Joe Mercer, said that any player walking out on England should never be picked again. Apparently, Stan called Mercer a couple of days later, asking for a second chance – but Joe wasn’t for turning. Stan did earn a recall with Don Revie’s England in 1976 and ’77, but Stan’s is an unfulfilled international career. And that wasn’t all of those managers’ making. Stan “should have” let the England manager manage; let him bring on a fellow striker, Frank Worthington, for his debut in international football back in May 1974, without the hullabaloo that followed it.

Stan Bowles is revered by so many, because he was such fun to watch. His and QPR’s is the great ‘nearly story’ of the 1970s. You hear the fans of that era say that were as likely to see Stan in a Shepherd’s Bush pub or bookies, as you were to see him at Loftus Road. He was that footballer off the streets, and he is loved because of that connectivity to the fans.

He couldn’t give his all to football, alas. And that saddens us, because we wonder how good he could have been, to have earned more than five England caps. However, there were other things going on in Stan’s life that we were never privy to at that time.

But what he did every Saturday afternoon was to bring all of who he was – his supreme footballing talent, his mischievousness, his private stresses – onto a football field to show us exactly who he was. And we totally adored him for doing that.