Football was the former England fast bowler's first sporting love, and his affection for Tottenham explained by the fact that his favourite player, Glenn Hoddle, played for the club.

"Hoddle was my hero," said Gough. "He was such a skilful player and a man who could change the course of a game with just one pass.

"That's how I liked to play my football, and I always wanted to be a professional footballer and be a skilful midfielder just like him.

"Unfortunately, it was the era of the 'work-rate' and I lacked a bit of pace – the complete opposite to my cricket."

Sport came naturally to Gough. As a youngster, his twin ambitions were to play football for Barnsley and cricket for Yorkshire, but football was always his strongest pull.

"To get the opportunity in both sports was amazing, really," he said. "I had a chance at Barnsley Football Club as a youngster and cricket was very much my second sport back then.

"It was only as I got older and went through my teenage years that cricket slowly began to take over and I started to realise I could become a professional cricketer.

"The amazing thing is, I didn't actually see my first cricket match until I was 15. I watched Yorkshire play at Abbeydale and that was the first time I'd seen a proper cricket match.

"I'd played a little bit for the Yorkshire schools cricket team, but it was second string stuff and football was the sport I hoped to excel at.

"It's funny, but even now, everyone from school teachers to scouts to footballers I bump into say they thought I would have been a better footballer than a cricketer.

"But at around about the age of 16, I suddenly developed a real passion for cricket and started to grow physically, which helped.

"Prior to that, I didn't have much physical stature and it's why I never judge a cricketer when they are really young. If a young lad is 11 years old or something, it doesn't matter what the sport is, the bigger children always tend to dominate.

"It's not until kids reach 15 or 16 and everyone has grown physically that you can really tell what people are like, and that's what happened to me. I was a real late developer."

After joining Barnsley, Gough went to Rotherham United as a second year YTS player.

"About halfway through I decided the whole thing wasn't for me," he said. "I got sick of all the travelling to be perfectly honest.

"I was getting up every day at 6.30am, going on the bus and all that, so I decided to join the Yorkshire Cricket Academy.

"Things happened pretty quickly after that, and when I made my first-class debut against Middlesex at Lord's in 1989, I became the first Youth Training Scheme cricketer in the country to play first-team cricket."

Memories of that Yorkshire debut are still fresh in Gough's mind.

"I always remember my dad driving me to Leeds station," he said. "I think he was as excited as I was. I hadn't even been to London and there I was, an 18-year-old kid on his way to the big city for the first time. It was brilliant.

"I managed to pick up a few wickets and it was great to make my debut at the home of cricket."

Gough took 3-44 in the first innings (his first wicket was Paul Downton, caught at first slip by Arnie Sidebottom) and 2-47 second time around – enough to show the club he had a bright future.

Gough continued to make progress over the next few summers, but it was of the steady rather than spectacular variety.

Not until 1993 did he really come into his own, and he can clearly remember the match that lit the blue touch paper.

"I suppose if I was going to pick out one performance as being my best for Yorkshire, then I would go back to the Championship game that year against Somerset at Taunton," he said.

"You tend to remember your earlier performances rather than your later ones, because they were the performances that set you on the road to success. I remember it was on a flat pitch and I took 7-42 to win the game. There's been plenty of other performances over the years – for example, I haven't bowled much better than when I took
5-50 against Warwickshire last year – but that game at Taunton was very, very special."

At the time, Gough had been toying with the idea of moving to Northamptonshire but it was then that his Yorkshire career really began to take off.

He finished the season with a bang and was rewarded with his county cap – "my proudest moment for Yorkshire".

"I'll never forget when Martyn Moxon gave me my cap at Scarborough that year," said Gough.

"It was a very big moment and a bit of a relief in all honesty. My dad was very proud of me and it meant a lot to the whole family. Days like that stay with you forever.

"Of course, the capping system nowadays has changed quite drastically. If you look at certain of the old-time players such as myself, I took 138 first-class wickets before I got my Yorkshire cap and I'd played 90 one-day games. Someone like Anthony McGrath had scored, combined, in Championship and one-day cricket, 5,500 runs.

"Then there's other people who have got the cap for one good season, or half a good season, and I think it's got to be for a lot more than that.

"For me, the system needs to be clearer and the cap should be given when you've played a certain number of matches – one-day or first-class, because one-day cricket now is as important in many ways as the four-day game.

"It's something the club should probably look at because the Yorkshire cap is so important."