Icons of Football: Could Paul Sturrock have played in La Liga? Gary Lineker says so...

Paul Sturrock is one of Scottish football's great one-club players, with more than a century of goals for Dundee United and in excess of 500 appearances.

Luggy, as he's more commonly known, went on to manage in Scotland and England, winning a series of promotions. But when the only three managers you ever played under were Jim McLean, Jock Stein, and Sir Alex Ferguson, it's just about as good as it gets for an education.

He is the second of six great figures from the Scottish game to be featured in Icons of Football, a new BBC Scotland documentary telling the stories of their lives and careers both on and off the pitch.

To whet your appetite, here are some of the tales about Sturrock that didn't make the final cut…

'In my eyes, he's a genius'

Graham Coughlan, who played and coached under Sturrock at Plymouth, Sheffield Wednesday and Southend United

In my eyes, he's a genius. I keep going back to this word, he's unique. I used to call him a lovable rogue. You bought into everything he said.

I first met the gaffer when he tried to sign me for Plymouth in 2000. I was playing at Livingston at the time.

I met him in a hotel and I should have known [what he was like] from that day because the teas, the coffees and the sandwiches that he ordered were left on our bill so we had to pick up the tab. He just disappeared in a puff of smoke as soon as the bills came.

Quite the sense of humour

Callum Davidson, who played under him at St Johnstone

I do remember in training he used to lose his temper a few times. He would go nuts at the strikers and say, 'this is what you do'... and he'd take a touch, chop round the man and stick it in the top corner.

He used to do this thing to Allan Preston after training... he thought Allan was maybe a bit overweight so when we were on the minibus, he'd drop him off on the motorway and get him to run home.

Once, we came in at half-time and he was going absolutely nuts. He picks up this cup and chucks it off the wall not realising that the cup's plastic and, as he throws it, the coffee goes all over him.

He turns around to John Blackley, his assistant, who is standing there trying not to burst out laughing. And then we all burst out laughing. He ended up laughing too.

'Could've played in La Liga'

Gary Lineker, whose Barcelona side were beaten home and away by United in the 1986-97 Uefa Cup quarter-finals

That Dundee United side were very well organised, very difficult, very tough, very aggressive and had a little bit of class in there and I think that ultimately made the difference.

We still fancied our chances in the home leg, but we didn't perform. Paul Sturrock's an excellent footballer and could have played in La Liga.

It's about performance and if you can deliver consistently you can become an icon and obviously in terms of Scottish football he was a consistent performer over many years and deserves his place.

'You had to kind of slow him down'

Aberdeen captain and regular Sturrock opponent Willie Miller

I must say, and I wouldn't admit this about every player I played against, but I always enjoyed giving Paul Sturrock a real, strong tackle. He was crying out for it.

Paul was very mobile, very quick, very sharp in the box. You had to slow him down somehow. It gave me great pleasure to put him into the advertising boards whenever I got the opportunity.

I was focused on his ability rather than what he wanted to say in my ear and it was an ability that was very high standard.

'Not a show-off'

Former United and Scotland team-mate Paul Hegarty

Paul had plenty of personality. He was buoyant and he was confident. Not to the stage where he was cocky or a show-off but he had the talent and he showed it, eventually after 18 months or two years after coming to Tannadice.

Jim McLean would always be on people's backs and he was certainly on Paul's back a lot of the time but Paul could handle it.

If you couldn't handle the stick that was flying around you wouldn't be there too long.

All six episodes of Icons of Football are on BBC iPlayer now