Tottenham’s John White and his son’s search for the missing superstar

For the most part, though, the character lacks depth: as thin as the comic book page he seems to come from.

“He was this sort of Roy of Rovers figure and as I got older I was disappointed and almost embarrassed by people who had better knowledge of my father than I did,” said Rob.

“Part of the joy of having a father is finding our own identity – there’s a little blueprint there and if we’re lucky we follow the good bits and discard the bad bits – but I don’t have that.

“There’s a child in me that wants to know the simple things: what he smells like and sounds like, more about him, than this persona. That’s the eternal frustration.”

Rob channeled the frustration into a book – The Ghost of White Hart Lane – which interviewed family members, former team-mates, friends and acquaintances, to try and identify the man who sustains the myth.

And slowly he found her.

Rob heard about the sadness and loneliness that gripped John every winter in London. He heard about the time he drove home dangerously drunk, cutting through the gates of White Hart Lane in his car. Most revealingly, an uncle tells Rob about the child John fathered in Scotland and abandoned before he traveled south, played for Spurs and met Sandra.

“Part of me always tried to live up to this man who was absolutely perfect, who was idolized not just by family, but by hundreds of thousands of people,” Rob said.

“To know that he had flaws and weaknesses, that he struggled with confidence, mental health and chronic illness, that he made mistakes – if I had known all this earlier, I would have been able to” g understand my life better.

“If we know that our parents make mistakes, it makes us understand that we can make mistakes. We don’t need to know all the answers.”

John’s absence made Rob as sure as his presence.

Rob is a lifelong photographer – “I’m always looking for details and clues” – and also trained as a counsellor.

Later this month, Rob will be in the audience at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium for the first performance of a play, called The Ghost of White Hart Lane, which he commissioned about his father’s life.

The game is meant to share his father’s story with generations of fans who don’t remember John’s life or death.

“It’s something I’ve discussed with my own therapist,” she said. “Seeing life breathed into the story of the play’s readings reinforced the reasons I wanted to be involved in the project.

“I think there is something in trying to bring my father back to life.”

After two nights in Tottenham, the game moves north, taking the opposite journey to the one John took in life, for a stint at the Edinburgh Festival., APART

There are some things that remain missing. Rob is still looking for a recording of John’s voice. One of his Tottenham shirts remains elusive.

But as the decades passed, she found more: an understanding and empathy for the father she never knew.