Ten years on from opening up his HQ to help the homeless in Stoke-on-Trent, the MBE just announced for Lou Macari in the King’s Birthday Honours List is long overdue.

The 77-year-old has been a force of nature since leaning on an ex-journalist pal in the local council all those years ago and securing vacant premises he could use to get his hugely successful Macari Centre up and running.

A two-time manager of Stoke City, he had been alerted by discussions among local councillors over the issue of rough sleepers and went onto the streets himself to get a handle on just how bad things were.

He wasn’t just shocked. He was determined to do something about it. And he has.

When Covid kicked in, the one-time Celtic, Scotland and Manchester United player had the brainstorm to fill a warehouse with socially-distanced glamping pods and called on contacts at the League Managers’ Association to have them all kitted out with TVs courtesy of an electrical firm that sponsored the organisation.

In my own limited dealings with him down the years, Macari has always come across as a super guy. Available. Accommodating. Helpful. Free with his time.

Lou Macari at his homeless shelter in Stoke, with its socially-distanced glamping pods

On one rain-lashed night in Lisbon back in 1993, with him having managed Celtic to a 2-0 UEFA Cup loss to a Jorge Cadete-inspired Sporting — perhaps not the finest period of his decorated career — a colleague and I were in the powder room beside the press centre in the old Jose Alvalade Stadium discussing at length just how awful the Parkhead outfit were, how shambolic the display was, what a bad fit wee Lou looked for the job.

We were still going at it hammer and tongs when we walked out into the corridor and found him standing there listening. 

The old heart skipped a beat, of course, but he was far too gracious to take it badly. 

From memory, he actually did a good job of pretending he hadn’t clocked it at all before going into the after-match press conference to answer all our questions.

Even then, witnessing what he has gone on to create in the wake of his life in football for those less fortunate than himself has been awe-inspiring.

Macari, of course, has had his own share of personal tragedy. 

He has admitted the loss of his son Jonathan in 1999 might have lit the fire for setting up the Macari Centre. Might have come from all those questions he asked himself back then over what more he could have done to help.

Whatever the motivation, the project he has created deserves all the plaudits it receives. We live in an era of moaning and groaning about the country that surrounds us. 

The social problems. Inequality. Crime. Societal breakdown. The increasing number of lost souls who appear to be falling off the map.

Bemoaning it is one thing. Actually taking up the cudgels, when the distance between your comfortable lifestyle and those harsh realities is such that you really don’t have to, and attempting to make things better is something else entirely. 

And, in that regard, Macari is a lasting example to us all.