Some sports legends retire gracefully, others are retired disgracefully, a few more shuffle off gracelessly, their departure from the scene greeted by a deafening collective "phew". Barry McGuigan, by and large, falls into the first category, Ben Johnson, by and large, the second, and Vinnie Jones, who's still at large, the third.
The churlish amongst you might contend that it is imprecise to label Vinnie a "sports legend", that his most memorable contribution to the game of Association Football was when he compressed Paul Gascoigne's testicles.
Perhaps, but the fact is that Vinnie Jones is the only man in history to have won the FA Cup despite having less footballing talent than a head of lettuce. That makes him, indisputably, a legend.
Why, though, is Vinnie on our minds? Well, it's just that he appeared briefly on one of those cheapie entertainment magazine shows last week (on one of those channels past 9 on your remote control, where you boldly go twice a month, usually by accident) and was asked if it was true he had spoken just 49 words in his latest movie, Swordfish.
"Yeah," he beamed brashly, "I fink that's about right."
Forty-nine words? Why was Vinnie so proud of a part only marginally more demanding than anything ever asked of Skippy the Kangaroo? Answer? He was paid roughly £40,817 per word, bringing his pay packet for the job to two million quid.
So, Vinnie has very definitely landed on his post-sporting-career feet, those parts of his body that were a hindrance to him during his playing days. He's evidently a contented, successful, fulfilled man, blooming beautifully and not missing his sporting days one teensy bit.
Very much like Barry McGuigan, the boxer who fell on hard times, got into bad company and ended up being hanged for murder. In his new musical, that is. A feel-good musical, in no sense at all.
"Barry has a cauliflower ear for music," said the Sky News man in Saturday's report on McGuigan's startling career change. And, to be honest, the sight of an all-singing, all-dancing, all-finger-clicking, all-winking Clones Cyclone was startling.
' Think Daniel O'Donnell and Larry Holmes crossed with that RT╔ ("divil a bit") weather man and you'll get the picture.
True, God gave us musicals to punish us for the most heinous of our sins so, at the best of times, they're unpleasant; but when the lead singer is attempting to sing through a nose that absorbed several thousand meaty jabs in the course of his former career, you end up with a sound that is, frankly, disquieting. Heinous, even.
Barry explained that he had inherited his singing talents from his father, and that he had grown up "with extemporaneous jamming sessions in the house".
Some observers noted that the word "extemporaneous" contains more syllables than you'd find in an average Frank Bruno sentence - little wonder, then, that Barry is also the voice of boxing on Sky Sports. So, he's doing fine too, happy with his post-pugilistic lot, at ease with himself after the winding up of his sporting life. Unlike Ben Johnson.
Johnson, the subject of the latest in BBC2's Reputations series on Tuesday night, bears all the scars of a broken man, consumed with bitterness and resentment over the manner in which his dazzling sprinting career ground to a drug-fuelled halt at the Seoul Olympics in 1988, just hours after he had won the 100 metres final in a world record 9.79 seconds.
"Which is more important to you, the world record or the gold medal," the BBC's Ray Stubbs asked him at the time. "The medal," insisted Johnson. Why? "Because nobody can take it away from me." But they did, because Johnson was a fraud, his body pumped with the same substance they inject into animals before their slaughter to put a bit more meat on them.
The programme didn't tell us anything we didn't know before about the Johnson story, but it contained some interesting commentaries, notably from Canadian journalist Al Sokel. Why weren't questions asked about Johnson's dramatically improved results at the time?
"Questions were asked, but not the really tough ones," he conceded. "To be honest I don't think we really wanted to burst the bubble, this was such a wonderful story for Canadians and we needed heroes." Sound familiar?
Since being banned for life in 1993, after testing positive again, Johnson has filled his days by hanging out with kindred spirit Maradona, training Col Gadafy's footballing son (who, by all accounts, is less skilled than Vinnie Jones) and racing against horses, relegated to the status of a circus act, a freak show.
He spoke dreamily of that Seoul race, when, he reckoned, he reached near-sporting-perfection. It was near-perfect alright, but there was nothing sporting about it.
"It felt like your whole mind, your whole body was either in space or in the middle of the ocean, with no traffic and no noise, everything was calm and quiet as it can be."
He cherishes the memory to this day, insisting that all his rivals in the race were on drugs too, so there's no reason why that memory should be tainted. "Everybody cheats, who doesn't cheat in life," he asked.
"Everybody cheats on their taxes, why Ben Johnson? I'm not the only one in this world."
Ben Johnson doth protest too much?
Ben Johnson's 2001 face tells a dismal, poignant story, one that should, perhaps, be required reading for any of today's bright young sporting things tempted by the lure of drug-fuelled gold.
When Heinz-Harald Frentzen hangs up his steering wheel, one can only hope he is a more contented man than Johnson.
And when Eddie Jordan packs in Formula One to become Manchester United chairman (see breaking football news), one must pray that he's spring-cleaned his conscience and has no regrets about sacking our Heinz - news of which was greeted by some in much the same way that 1990s teenies received word of Robbie Williams' departure from Take That. Tearfully hysterical, in a frenzied, despairing, dejected kind of way.
Ricardo Zonta was the man to profit from Ruthless Callous Pitiless Eddie's decision ("Jordan Go Home!" and "Eddie Jordan - I Hate You" howled just two of the banners we spotted at the German Grand Prix yesterday), but Heinz devotees felt sure that the Brazilian would express compassion for the nice German when he spoke to ITV's Louise Goodman on Saturday. Hmm. "Good news for me, no?" Thank you for that Ricardo.
And to the German F1 fan we saw with a Michael Schumacher/Ferrari tattoo covering his entire back, from shoulder to just above bottom, we say: let's hope Schuie Snr doesn't sign for Arrows next season. If he does, you'll feel as cheery as Paul Gascoigne the day Vinnie Jones marked him tightly, or Ben Johnson the day he discovered he wouldn't get away with it. Or Barry McGuigan the day the Waterford Crystal goblet on his mantelpiece shatters in and around the point he begins rehearsing his musical. Gutted.
