'I'd try to join in with the kids playing football and the pain would shoot up my leg - it wasn't a good place to be'

There are times when the phrase 'elder statesman' is meant as a genuine compliment, but they are few and far between. Usually it is used, politely yet without conviction, to describe an ageing member of the group who is on his last legs and who most of the younger members think should have retired long ago.

It is often trotted out to describe jump jockeys of a certain age, who have been ground down by the hardships of the game and have a certain care-worn countenance, not to mention a pronounced limp. Maybe people said it about Richard Johnson. He wouldn't be surprised.

"The lads would see me exercising and stretching before I went out and I'm sure they thought, 'Look at that old git'," he says, recalling those days at the tail-end of his riding career when he was rather less sprightly than when he started out.