WHO better to comment on the Allan McGregor situation than a man who played his football in a time when goalkeepers really needed protection but didn’t always get it?

The abiding image most have of Ally Maxwell, the former Motherwell, Rangers and Dundee United goalkeeper, is of him heroically struggling on through the 1991 Scottish Cup final with three cracked ribs and a ruptured spleen after getting clattered under a high ball by the burly figure of John Clark.

While he eventually inspired a team which also included Davie Cooper, Stevie Kirk and Phil O’Donnell to glory, the Fir Park side couldn’t have replaced him if they wanted to, because back then there were no substitute goalkeepers on the bench.

While the act of ‘leaving one on’ an exposed goalkeeper has never really gone away – think Sergio Ramos on Loris Karius in the Champions League final, which may have caused a mild concussion and led to the horrific mistakes from the German which settled the biggest match in club football - Maxwell knows these are changed days in the inter-relationship between the goalkeeper and his arch-rival, the striker.

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Now a goalkeeper coach at FC Del Sol out in Arizona, he teaches his young charges never to lead with their studs showing when coming out for one v ones and warns them that it is a “level playing field now” on the dangers of catching an attacker on his follow through.

Having said all that, he takes a dim view of panels or compliance officers getting themselves involved in incidents such as the McGregor-Lewis Ferguson incident which the referee has seen at the time and decided not to take action on.

“If a goalkeeper is taught to come out on a one v one situation, in my opinion he has the right to protect himself, but not with his studs,” said Maxwell. “If you are coming up, studs up, then that is just poor technique.

“If you are coming out properly, you are leading with your hands with your heads tucked behind your elbow, I guess your knee and your elbow protect your face. There is an element of protection a goalkeeper needs to have but I have never taught any keeper to come out feet first.

“But where I have a little bit of a problem is with these panels of people, who ever they may be,” he added. “If someone deliberately punches someone off the ball, or outwith the view of the referee, then I could maybe see why a panel might give a two-match ban for that.

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“But if the referee at the point in time has seen the tackle and doesn’t even think it is worthy of a penalty or a free-kick, I can’t really see why this now is a two-match ban. Especially if you are diving at a striker’s feet - when you are probably the one who is more likely to get hurt than anyone else. And I think VAR is a far fairer way to look at these things anyway, especially if the referee doesn’t think it is a foul.”

For all the skulduggery of the past, there was camaraderie too. At the end of 90 minutes of war, or in the case of the 1991 final 120 minutes, there was a handshake. Maxwell and Clark would go on to become team-mates and friends at Dundee United, although that was after United won the 1994 Scottish Cup at the expense of Maxwell’s Rangers.

“When I played, I played against some legendary strikers,” added Maxwell. “Guys like Ally McCoist, Pierre van Hooijdonk and John Robertson. Some of them could basically do what they wanted to but you shook hands at the end of the game. You had to take the rough with the smooth.

“Back then you were lucky if there was one set of cameras at the game, nowadays there are cameras all over the field. Players have to realise they are not going to get away with anything. Back then, we all got away with stuff we should have probably not got away with.

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“Even John Clark - to this day, I don’t believe that he meant to hurt me,” Maxwell added. “I had my arms stretched, my ribs were exposed a little bit, and he caught me with an elbow, but there was no swing of an elbow. His momentum took me right into me.

“Some people said that he had gone out to leave a little bit on me, but I don’t believe that any player would deliberately go into deliberately give another player a bad injury.

“We all know about the Neil Simpson and Durrant tackle, but I don’t think another player would deliberately want to seriously hurt another player.

“When we used to play Aberdeen with Rangers, we identified Joe Miller at the time and as a group of players we were aware of what we had to do, we had to let him know he is in a game. That is how it was. But at no point in time did any coach say I want you to injure this or that player.”