THE word 'legend' is banded about so frequently these days, particularly on Sky Sports and TALKSport, that it seems to have lost its true meaning.
Journeymen footballers who have clocked up barely a couple of hundred matches playing for a whole raft of clubs since 1992 (which, as we all know, was when football officially started in this country) are given the 'L' word next to their name when even the word 'great' - a rank below in my book - could hardly be justified.
But there is no doubt in my mind that the word 'legend' can quite comfortably fit in the same sentence when describing Liverpool Football Club player Jamie Carragher.
The long-serving Reds star announced on Thursday lunchtime that this season will be his 17th and final one as a professional footballer. All 17 of them spent at Anfield.
All Reds fans knew this decision was coming one day - and Thursday, February 7, 2013 just happened to be that day.
In many ways, it sums Carra up as the sort of man we all know he is. To avoid any speculation about his future with the club, talk that could well have disrupted the team at the business end of the season both in Europe and fighting for as higher-placed finish as possible in the Premier League, Carra has stopped the debate before it has even begun. A brilliant move by a brilliant player. As timely a block as any one of the countless ones he has performed defending the Liverpool goal since he made his debut way back in January, 1997 - it tells you how long ago that was as John Major was still in Number 10, Everton had only gone two seasons without winning a trophy, I had been married less than 12 months and no-one had ever heard of Simon Cowell (apart from Sinitta, probably).
Fast forward a little over 193 months and more than 700 appearances later and you have in Jamie Carragher one of the greatest-ever careers for Liverpool Football Club.
From a Bootle lad who grew up an Evertonian before becoming a committed Liverpudlian, Jamie has come a long, long way. His achievements wearing that red shirt are well-documented with his defensive heroics in Istanbul on that unforgettable late spring evening in 2005 cementing his title 'legend'.
His work off the field too has been nothing short of magnificent with his 23 Foundation, a charitable body helping causes in Merseyside, a wonderful legacy.
And it is with '23' in mind that I believe that Liverpool Football Club should do Bootle's great son the real honour of being the first player in the club's illustrious history to have their shirt number officially retired.
Back in the summer of 2009, in a series of offbeat sporting features I wrote for the Football Echo - 'Left Field' - I argued the case that it was time for football clubs to start to follow the American sporting tradition and retire shirt numbers for those players who truly merited the honour.
The Stateside sport I follow in particular, Major League Baseball, has numerous examples of this, with the team I have supported for almost 30 years, the San Diego Padres, having five former players' jersey numbers retired. There's a prize if anyone can name that famous quintet... no, there isn't, but at least it caught your attention!
Now is the time for Carragher's 23 to be retired. Who else - apart from Robbie Fowler's very early days - can you picture wearing that number?
What a great thing that would be and a very worthy recipient of such an honour.
They say no player is bigger than the club - that's true, of course. But some players truly deserve being honoured more than others. And what better way than to say thanks for a wonderful career - you will never be forgotten here. And we're going to show it by retiring your shirt number.
I just wonder whether even now Messrs Henry and Werner are thinking about this idea, bearing in mind all the numbers that have been retired at Fenway Park over the years.
So the sun is about to set on Jamie's glittering career. Sadly for him it will finish without a Premier League winner's medal - but it certainly wasn't for the want of trying on his part.
And he can console himself with the fact that just like Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman always had Paris, he'll always have Istanbul.
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