It’s 3.30pm on Saturday and the sun is shining in Dalmarnock. Swanston Street is deserted, one car glistening outside Morrison’s Gym sits idle with the heat from that unfamiliar yellow ball in the sky relentlessly beating down on its glistening bodywork.

The owner, Scottish boxing legend Alex Morrison, is sitting in the cool shade of the office he has occupied for years,

at ease behind a desk littered with mementos of a glittering career, surrounded by pictures, paintings and posters of the cream of the sport’s top stars who have crossed the manager and promoter’s path.

Morrison’s eyes travel across the rectangular room, scanning the photographs of household names covering the white walls in his office and gym from Ricky Burns through Benny Lynch and Mike Tyson – and even a snap of him with Bill Clinton.

Suddenly, his eyes stop on a picture he has seen what must have been a million times before.However, there is a different feeling that stirs inside the 76-year-old this time as his gaze fixes on one small brown frame.

Within it there is more than a picture staring back at him, more than a print on photo paper.

Instead, it acted as a visual trigger for a memory that will never leave the man who knows more about boxing than Pickfords as he not only thinks about a fighter he had the honour of meeting, but the fact that, for his hero Muhammad Ali, the final bell has finally rung.

“It was my wife that told me that morning that he’d passed away,” Morrison told SportTimes, a sombre tone undeniable in his voice. “She switched on the television and saw it.

“I had actually had a dream about him that night. I read on Friday he had pneumonia so I had dreamt he’d passed away, so when my wife told me I thought he’d already gone.”

The Scottish boxing legend’s eyes turn to the picture of him and Ali, an image that was taken during the man from Kentucky’s visits to the UK.

“I last saw him the last time he was in Glasgow. He was still witty. Considering he could hardly write he was very articulate and very witty.

“He was an amazing personality. I wouldn’t even say he was the greatest boxer, I’d say he was the greatest human

being of the last 100 years.

“He stands up to anyone in any walk of life given what he stood for and what he contributed to the world.”

That photo of the two sharing a handshake is clearly precious to Morrison, whose office also contains various memorabilia and images of the legend who sadly passed away in Arizona late on Friday evening.

But his first contact with ‘The Greatest’ could not be further removed from the modest setting in Glasgow’s east end.

Retelling the tale of how he and Scots boxer Terry Feeley first met Ali, Morrison transports us both back to New York City in March 1971, just a day or so before the then undefeated fighter met Joe Frazier at Madison Square Garden in ‘The Fight of the Century’.

“The first time I met him was during that trip to New York, we actually met in the Empire State Building,” he said as a warm smile began to creep across his face.

“We were just sightseeing and on the way back down we saw him, his sparring partner and two women. Nobody was near him and we stood and spoke to him for quite a while.

“He asked where we were both from and we said Glasgow. He wasn’t sure where it was. He thought he had a rough idea about Scotland, but said he knew where Buckingham Palace was. He said ‘tell the Queen Cassius says hello.’

“We tried to explain to him to him where it was, then he asked me what I did for a living. I told him I was a lorry driver and Terry told him he was a heating engineer. He was amazed we had come all that way to see him fight.”

Of course, history tells us Frazier won that night on a unanimous points decision following 15 rounds. It was not enough to quash the admiration from Morrison, who stood inside the world-famous venue in the heart of Manhattan. He knew he had seen someone special.

Forty five years on, Ali’s influence on the Scot is clear to see. From the poster advertising that fight in the Big Apple – which hangs signed by both fighters in the gym that has homed its fair share of world-class fighters – to many of the great man’s famous quotes.

What does this tell you? Well, almost half a century on from that fight, Ali’s legacy in the sport is as strong now as it ever was. A thought that reassures Morrison as he re-emerges back into Swanston Street.

“I don’t think the younger generations appreciate the phenomenon he was,” he says.

The heavyweight title has been cheapened a bit with all the different belts, but in his time there were only two. He was the heavyweight champion of the world. Who is it today?

“It’s been very sad to see him deteriorate over the years. The doctors shouldn’t have let him box on. It won’t diminish his legacy, though. Far from it. We will still be talking about Ali in 100 years to come.

“Sugar Ray Robinson is as good or maybe even better, but people don’t remember him. It’s all about Ali as long as time exists.”