To the exclusive club of Billy Wright, Sir Bobby Charlton, Bobby Moore and Peter Shilton, the name Harry Kane will be added on Thursday night. It is only the fifth time that a new men’s England international appearance record has been set in the post-war era, with Kane preparing for his 126th England match to surpass a landmark that has stood for 36 years. “I’ll be the first to congratulate him because I think he’s done it the right way,” says Shilton, who will be back at Wembley to metaphorically pass on the baton.

Shilton’s 20-year international span – which actually involved matches across four different decades when you take in an unofficial 1969 friendly against Mexico – will surely not be surpassed, even by Kane.

But there are rather more matches these days, and Shilton won his 125 caps despite, for periods, sharing the gloves with Ray Clemence who won 61 caps of his own. Don Revie had a brief preference for Clemence and there was Ron Greenwood’s rotation policy between 1977 and 1982 when Shilton was arguably the best in the world.

From his home on Mersea Island in Essex, Shilton, now 77, admits that he will feel “sad” to lose such a prestigious record but says there could not be a better successor. He was previously rather less impressed by how David Beckham crept past Bobby Moore’s outfield record following a series of cameo appearances under Fabio Capello.

“He’s not coming on as a substitute; he’s been out there every game, doing his job,” says Shilton of Kane. “Records are there to be beaten and I couldn’t think of anybody better than Harry, not just on the pitch but off the pitch. I am very proud of the record and handing it to Harry makes it not quite as bad.

“I think striker is the hardest position to play and goalkeeper is the second hardest because of the responsibility you’ve got. But scoring goals is the most difficult thing and Harry’s record in the modern game is there to be seen.”

Shilton’s own set of records, spread from the era of Sir Alf Ramsey, Moore and the Charlton brothers to Italia ’90, Sir Bobby Robson and Gazza’s tears, were also monumental. He still jointly holds the record for most clean sheets of any World Cup goalkeeper and retired with a mind-boggling, world-record tally of 1,387 senior matches from 1966 until 1997. No player before or since can also match the 10 seasons that he was voted by his peers into the PFA’s top-flight team of the year.

Shilton was still a teenager at Leicester City, where he was mentored by his hero Gordon Banks, when he had his first taste of international football.

Then in the Under-23 squad, Shilton was literally sorting out his washing following a game when he was called up to a full international tour of Mexico in 1969 as preparation for the following year’s World Cup. Aged 19, he was suddenly in a dressing room of World Cup-winners before playing against Mexico and being on the bench for a match against Pelé’s Brazil.

“I learned so much because of the way players conducted themselves, the team spirit and the respect that Sir Alf Ramsey generated,” says Shilton. “When Alf said something, the players always observed it. He didn’t complicate things. He just set the rules and made sure the rules were adhered to. He had his own sense of humour at times.”

Shilton just failed to make the final squad for Mexico before becoming Ramsey’s first choice when Banks was forced to retire after losing an eye in a car accident in 1972. Shilton was brilliant in the 1973 Home Nations before what he still rates as his worst international experience when Poland somehow drew 1-1 at Wembley to deny England a place at the 1974 World Cup.

“That was a game we should have won easily – I really felt that team was going places,” says Shilton. “Poland finished third in the World Cup in Germany. Obviously I was disappointed with myself with their goal, although I did learn from that, which helped me later on in my career with my technique. It wasn’t an easy shot, skidding across the turf, and it happened in a split second.”

Shilton was then “very frustrated” to lose his place to Clemence before Greenwood’s five-year rotation policy. “It was quite bizarre really, although Ray and myself were good friends as well as rivals,” says Shilton. “Brian [Clough] would turn around and be: ‘I don’t understand why he can’t make his bloody mind up; it’s obvious, he’s got to pick Peter Shilton.’

“He [Greenwood] did say that he was going to pick one of us for the World Cup in ’82 and he did pick me. Ron and Don Howe were a good pair. Ron loved to play football and Don was a good blend for him on the defensive side.”

So what would Clough – clearly then the outstanding English candidate – have been like as the national team manager?

“He’d have done a great job because he knew how to handle people and he was a double act with Peter Taylor,” says Shilton, who was a crucial part of Nottingham Forest’s European Cup-winning teams in 1979 and 1980. “Brian was the motivator. Peter was a good judge on players and tactics.

“With the way the FA was run, there were some really good-meaning people, but they weren’t probably up to scratch with the football side of things and Cloughie would probably have clashed with them.

“He got the youth team job [in 1977] and some of the [FA] committee wanted to get on the coach to the match and Cloughie was: ‘You’re not coming on my bloody coach. Go and find your own way’. That was typical Brian.”

One memory of finally making his World Cup debut, aged 32 in 1982, was how the sweaty conditions in Bilbao during the opening 3-1 win against France meant that the hastily ironed on shirt numbers soon peeled off on to the pitch. “It was comical,” says Shilton.

England, though, would otherwise struggle creatively to complement Shilton’s concession of just one goal in five games and went home unbeaten after the second of two group phases.

The World Cups of 1986 and 1990 – when England went agonisingly close to beating the two eventual champions Argentina and West Germany – have since been endlessly debated, with Shilton picking out the 1989 goalless draw against Poland in Chorzow to secure qualification as a favourite memory. “I made three or four really good saves in the first half which kept us in the game,” he says. “It stuck with me because of the Poland connection from the game in 1973.”

Having played alongside so many of the England greats, Shilton is certain that Kane deserves his place among the top table but stresses how times have changed. “When I played at Wembley, you’d have this long walk across the pitch. The terracing really did create a big atmosphere. When teams played against us, they’d hit that wall of sound, and it was quite intimidating.

“The corporate side has obviously changed; somebody told me a story that they [former players] used to have to queue for the toilets at half-time [with fans]. There used to be a long line of people and I just remember somebody once telling me that Big Jack Charlton was in the queue with his flat cap. It was a bit different but it was great times and it’s always good to go back.”

After once being one of the Madame Tussauds attractions, another blast from the past came recently when Shilton was invited to see the new Harry Kane waxwork.

With a new three-year contract just signed at Bayern Munich, there is also just time for it to be remoulded with an elusive international trophy. “We went very close on a couple of occasions; in ’86 we were cheated and then done on penalties in ’90,” says Shilton. “Harry’s also been close a few times and hopefully it will change before he stops.”