Each week on Football FanCast we will be celebrating those special breed who lit up the Premier League with their unique brand of utter genius. This time out we pay homage to a thoroughly decent guy who delighted in delighting.

If Peter Beardsley was Brazilian that would make for a very special footballer indeed. And that very special footballer would've been called Gianfranco Zola.

The Sardinian striker had a similar physique to Beardo and the same impish scheming bemused leaden defenders every time the ball was fortunate enough to be in his company. But there was more too: a guile and smoothness performed in motion that was just so….un-British.  We don’t really do panache over this way. Never have.

Zola arrived to our shores in November 1996 to medium fanfare, looking like Fonzie’s older brother despite being a mere thirty years of age. We were aware of him because at Napoli he’d been groomed as Maradona’s successor and such a responsibility makes ripples across oceans. We were aware of him pretty much to that extent and knowing his name (and incidentally what a name it is: rolling off the tongue like a forward losing his marker then saying ‘ciao’ to take the piss). Let’s face it, back in the 90s our knowledge of European football was not what it is now.

That summer he’d played every group game of Italy’s Euro 1996 campaign but truthfully he’d not made much of an impact and besides we were too besotted with the prospect of football coming home to care.

But then he signed for Chelsea from Parma for £4.5m during a period when Chelsea was intent on transforming the Premier League into a cosmopolitan playground and within the space of a single season we’d all fallen hopelessly in love with the little magician. We were smitten.

We were smitten because although genius is almost by its very definition a rare trait we had seen it before and would again. But a genius who was so thoroughly unassuming and nice? That took some getting used to.

It was as if a higher power had bestowed a magisterial talent onto the wrong guy. It was intended for the kid in class chewing gum all surly and testing the teacher’s patience. It was not meant for the boy with the broad easy smile.

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If us Brits didn’t do panache, what we excelled at was responding kindly to decency. We appreciated that quality above all others. That we knew for sure.

Of course though there was infinitely more to it than that. On leaving Stamford Bridge after seven years of outstanding service Zola was voted the greatest player in the club’s history and you don’t get that honour on self-deprecation alone. A year later in 2004 he was awarded an OBE and that isn’t given out simply for being easy-going and humble.

Zola was brilliant. That’s what mattered, more than the diplomacy and his endearing fashion of playing the game as if purely for kicks. He was staggeringly, stupendously, and consistently brilliant.

His darts into space exhilarated, but then came the stillness, with the ball wagging at his feet, as he scoped out his surroundings and assessed all possibilities. Most times there would be a pass.

If we were lucky a flick. But on occasion we were luckier still as the shoulder dropped, the thick mane of dark hair lowered with it and he’d be off, twisting and turning, perplexing and confounding. Zola’s individual marauding always had a purpose and was always executed at full speed (because showboating is for those who needed to show off) and without exception it was poetry rattled off on fast-forward.

He was instrumental in his club winning five trophies and he scored 59 goals in 229 appearances but stats don’t apply here. What counts are the memories he gave us regardless of our club allegiance.

There was that impudent flick from a corner against Norwich. That free-kick away to Spurs that curled so beautifully it made a begrudging White Hart Lane swoon (a free-kick taught to him by the great man himself on a training pitch in Naples).  And there was that smile: broad and genuine, delighting in delighting.

In this whole series it is doubtful that we’ll cover a genius so grounded. Or better.

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