Former South Africa captain Lucas Radebe, in his 11th and final season in England, is set to be given a farewell fit for a chief in his testimonial at Leeds next Monday.
Radebe, who won 70 caps for South Africa, has been unable to play since last August when was stretched off against Wolves with a ruptured Achilles tendon.
His testimonial match next Monday sees a Leeds XI comprising players from his eventful decade at Elland Road play an International XI managed by Bolton manager Sam Allardyce.
His time at Leeds has been blighted by injury and he jokes that the club will name a treatment room after him when he is gone.
More than 20,000 tickets have already been sold for Monday's match and Radebe will give all the proceeds to charity. His favoured causes benefit sick, disabled and disadvantaged children.
Money will also go to a campaign to halt the HIV/Aids pandemic in South Africa.
Radebe and his wife, Feziwe, plan to return to the Rainbow Nation eventually but for now, their children, Luke and Jessica, are settled in primary school in Yorkshire.
He is to take his coaching badges shortly, qualifications, which could, in time, led to his becoming coach of the country he represented at the finals of two World Cups.
"I know I'll get involved in football when I go home because that's what I know best," he told The Independent.
"I want to give back something from all the experience I've gained and to keep the ball rolling in producing players who could come to Europe like me. That would be great for football in South Africa."
In the slums where Radebe grew up during the era of apartheid, along with five sisters and six brothers, he learnt his trade playing barefoot with a ball made of rolled-up socks.
As a teenager he was part of a local vigilante group which "tried to do the right things but in the wrong way", sometimes with violence.
Once, when he was driving to buy drinks for his mother, a bullet ripped through the side of his car, made a hole in his back and exited via the left leg.
He says the shooting was both a "defining moment" and a "blessing in disguise". His brush with death which made him determined to make the most of his life and his talent.
Leeds paid 750,000 for Radebe and Philomen Masinga in 1994. His value was 250,000 pounds and then manager Howard Wilkinson gave the defender his debut on the right wing.
He found it hard adapting to the "freezing cold" and did not like Tetley's bitter ("horrible") and roast beef ("ugh") and after 18 months, a homesick Radebe bought a ticket back to Johannesburg.
But the dread of facing his parents, who were so proud when he joined Leeds, told him to stay and to keep trying. Nine months later new manager George Graham made him captain.
He then became a linchpin in David O'Leary's side, citing the team that reached the Champions' League semi-finals in 2001 as definitely the best he played in.
But Leeds piled up enormous debts and as the best players were sold off last year they slid into relegation.
"We made such giant strides, challenging for the title and in Europe, and suddenly the club was falling apart," he says of the fall.
"It was a sad, difficult time. But Leeds will rise again. Things are improving financially. First we need stability, then success will follow."
But he has no regrets after a wonderful career which once saw Nelson Mandela on an official visit to Leeds telling the dignitaries: "This is my hero."
"I felt I could burst with pride," he says. "I was thinking: 'Me? A hero to him?' He's a true hero. South Africa would not be free and independent today but for his sacrifices and his leadership."