“It translates to ’stonehousewall’ in Norwegian,” he explained, “and when I was a little kid I used to kick a ball against the stone wall of a house.”The navigational nous of a Norseman would certainly be helpful in locating Ochilview. Stenhousemuir is both a football outpost and a village unsignposted on the main arterial routes through Stirlingshire. Terrace admission charges having been cut to 1975 prices (pounds 1 for adults, 50p for children), Boxing Day trippers could be descending from far and wide – from Oslo, if not from Oban. I’ve left it to the statisticians.”The McStattos are likely to be out in force at Ochilview on Saturday to witness Armstrong’s momentous appearance against East Stirlingshire.

I’d been playing for a junior team, Haddington Athletic, and I only signed on the Friday. I’d just turned 19.”I never thought I’d play league football, to be honest. And it was a few years before I started thinking it would quite nice to play until I was 30. It was only six years ago that people started talking about records, when I got close to Kenny Thomson’s Scottish League record I’ve never thought about breaking records myself I haven’t even counted up the appearances. “I must have played reasonably well in that trial game,” he reflected. “Meadowbank lost 4-1 and they didn’t sign me but Stirling Albion did I made my debut here at Ochilview actually We won 1-0 I can remember the goal. The goalkeeper dropped the ball on the edge of the box and a guy called Mike Lawson scored.

Meadowbank’s line-up was entered in the Rothmans Football Yearbook without a No 8. It was not until 27 September of the same year – with Rod Stewart’s “Sailing” at No 1, Kenny Dalglish scoring the winner for Celtic against Dundee United at Parkhead, Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier preparing for their thriller in Manila, and BBC1 unveiling a new show called Bruce Forsyth and the Generation Game – that Armstrong made his first official mark, with his own name and his own number. And the tartan-bedecked Bay City Rollers were topping the charts with “Bye Bye Baby”. It was not the best of times, you could say, for Scottish-made records.Not that any formal record exists of Armstrong having launched his epic run on Saturday 25 April 1975. In keeping with Caledonian cloak-and-dagger custom, he was listed on the team-sheet at Annfield that afternoon as “A Trialist”. The television menu that night included such small-screen delights as Dixon of Dock Green, Mike Yarwood and Sale of the Century.