Can you remember that film ‘One Million Years BC’, in which scantily clad cave dweller Raquel Welch pottered around with other scantily clad cave dwellers in a barren landscape consisting of stop-motion lizards and volcanic rocks? Bar the occasional oog here or an ugg there, the entire production had no actual coherent dialogue, which, funnily enough, made it resemble the morning conference on The Herald’s sports desk.

In these rapid, rat-a-tat-tat days of text messages, emoticons and acronyms, which has led to people communicating without using real words, I’m convinced that in a few years’ time, we’ll all be back living like hunched, slack-jawed troglodytes, daubing primitive paintings on to the damp walls of our caves with our knuckles and grunting and drooling incomprehensibly. For the aforementioned Herald sports desk, life will go on as normal.

I don’t know about you, but I’ve never been a fan of shoving an OMG or a LOL on to a hum-drum mobile phone havering. Personally, this scribe blames the financial fouterings of Rangers five years ago for this upsurge in abbreviations, a period we have been reminded of again this week during the latest guddles down in Govan. At the time, it was all PAYE, VAT, HMRC, CVA, BDO and EBT, after all. Even the name of potential investor, Bill Ng, looked more like something you’d inadvertently pocket type when you sat on your phone’s keypad. Presumably, the bold Ng decided to spend his millions on purchasing a few vowels for his title.

Anyway, all of this really has not a lot to do with the main subject of these witterings and wanderings. Being readers of great knowledge and substance, you’re probably all well aware that it’s 70 years now since Steaua Bucharest football team were formed in 1947. And what’s the best thing to ever come out of Steaua Bucharest football team? That’s right. Helmuth Duckadam. On a first perusal, Duckadam’s name looks like the conundrum at the end of the Romanian version of Countdown. He was, of course, the colossal custodian who single-handedly helped Steaua win the 1986 European Cup final against Terry Venables’ Barcelona by saving all four Catalan kicks from the spot in a 2-0 penalty shoot-out triumph. It was, as they’d say now, an OMG moment.

Duckadam hailed from Transylvania and possibly endured years of withering, cliché-ridden, vampire-related remarks as he progressed through the goalkeeping ranks. “Helmuth’s pretty handy between the sticks but he’s terrible with crosses.” Now, there’s a pitiful excuse for a gag that’s so old and wearisome, it would make Van Helsing hammer a stake through his own heart in sighing resignation.

For reasons unknown to even the deepest of psychological pokers and prodders, I always had some strange fascination with a giddy mix of continental goalkeepers who were still kicking about in the 1980s. Joel Bats, Harald Schumacher, Rinat Dasayev, Jean-Marie Pfaff, Ole Qvist, Peter Disztl? They were all fine stoppers while most of them possessed that same manly prowess and robust hirsuteness which almost begged the rather disturbing question, “crikey, did he no’ play the plumber in that moderately steamy movie that was on after Sportscene?” It was a bit of a change from the peely-wally, gap-toothed cragginess of Jim Leighton.

Duckadam, all curly hair, sturdy moustache and fairly ticht attire that brought a new meaning to the phrase Communist Bloc, elevated himself into the pantheon of greats in Seville in ’86. The game itself had been about as exciting as painting railings but the penalty shoot-out proved that, well, you can’t beat a penalty shoot-out. Barcelona couldn’t beat Helmuth either. His opposite number, Javier Urruticoechea, saved Steaua’s first two kicks but as the Romanian’s finally made a breakthrough, Duckadam kept flinging himself hither and thither to repel the Adidas tango assaults from 12 yards.

Duckadam was only 27 when he became the Hero of Seville. Fame was fleeting and it didn’t lead to fortune. The European final was his last match for Bucharest. Not long after, he was diagnosed with an aneurysm and eventually had to quit the game although rumours, whisperings and nod-and-a-wink stories abounded. One claim was that officials of Real Madrid had gifted Duckadam a Mercedes car as a reward for thwarting Barcelona’s bid for a first European Cup win. Nicu Ceausescu, the son of the brutal Romanian dictator Nicolae, ordered Duckadam to give the car to him and when he didn’t, Ceausescu shot him in the arm.

Duckadam would eke out a modest, hand-to-mouth existence of anonymity and ill-health. Even the gloves that repelled Barcelona had to be flogged. “I accepted an internet offer of a few thousand euros and with all my regret I sold them,” he lamented.

The memories of Helmuth’s heroics will always remain priceless, though.