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After 66 minutes of Sunderland's Europa League opener against AZ Alkmaar at the Stadium of Light, Enzo Le Fee had broken the deadlock and with it broken a 53-year record.
Prior to Le Fee stroking home from the penalty spot, Horswill had been the last Sunderland player to score a European goal.
With that badge of honour came adulation - and the 73-year-old loved it!
"It was a pride and joy for me for 53 years," Horswill tells the Northern Echo.
"I used to tell everybody! But it's gone now isn't it.
"I'm still gutted, really gutted. I thought that if we play a 0-0 draw in every game then we can still qualify!
"Someone said to me, ‘What about if they get all own goals?’ And I’d never thought of that! If we got own goals in each game, I would still have the record.
"When we got the penalty, I thought, ‘Oh God, here we go, it's going to go now!’ But Le Fee is one of our best players so I was pleased it was him.”
We are covering every kick of Sunderland's Europa League campaign home and away in association with our sponsors Costspex Opticians
We are covering every kick of Sunderland's Europa League campaign home and away in association with our sponsors Costspex Opticians (Image: Newsquest)
The disappointment is twinned with immense joy and pride, of course. For Horswill is not just a club legend - an FA Cup winner in 1973 and star of the European side in the season that followed - but a diehard fan. He still travels to away games when he can.
And he still - more than five decades on - speaks with amazement at the fact his grandma made the trip to Budapest for Sunderland's first Cup Winners' Cup away game against Vasas. After all, before Horswill made the breakthrough with the Black Cats, Phylis had never previously left Annfield Plain!
“I got off the plane and went into the hotel and she was stood there," he recalls.
"I said to her, 'how the heck did you get here?' And she said she wouldn't miss this for the world!"
She was at Wembley the year earlier when Sunderland stunned Leeds United in the FA Cup final. That happened to be the only game Horswill's mum went to watch in person - though she left early.
"My mother never came. She didn't like to see the way I played because I was the one who tackled everyone," laughs Horswill.
"She actually came to the final and I don't know if you remember that me and Jonny Giles had a 'bit of a chat'. She got up and walked out and sat outside Wembley on the steps and came back in when we did the lap of honour."
Horswill was just 20 at the time and admitted he had no idea that his life had just changed forever.
"Even now," he says, "the way you're respected, not just me, all the lads.
"When I go into town, if I go into a restaurant or go shopping, I go into Sainsbury's and a bloke will come up to me and say 'that was the best day of my life', and his wife will give him a clip and say, 'that about our wedding day!'
"That happens every week. Someone mentions it every week."
The Sunderland team for the 1973-74 season pictured with the FA Cup which they had won at the end of the 1972-73 season. Bob Stokoe (Manager), Mike McGivan, Vic Halom, John Latham, Trevor Swinburne, Jim Montgomery, Ritchie Pitt, Joe Bolton, Keith (Image: PA Archive/PA Images)
Europe the following season was an adventure like no other. After seeing off Vasas, it was Sporting Lisbon for the Black Cats in the second round. It wasn't possible for Sunderland to do a scouting report so Horswill and his teammates knew very little about the side they were coming up against. They didn't know, for example, that they were tasked with shackling Argentinian superstar Héctor Yazalde, who scored a staggering 46 goals that season.
It was Yazalde who scored a late goal at Roker Park to half the first leg deficit late on. It would prove pivotal. Sporting won 2-0 in the second leg and advanced 3-2 on aggregate.
Phylis was there in Lisbon for the game, of course.
"My mum and dad worked hard for us," says Horswill.
"We had four sisters, so we didn't have a lot of money to spend. How they got the flight money and everything to get my grandmother in a hotel and over in Budapest, and Portugal as well, was unbelievable.
"She was so proud I played for Sunderland. She used to bring sandwiches and a little flask to the games. She never drank but she'd bring it for the guys she used to sit with and give them a little tipple."
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Horswill left for Manchester City the following summer.
"I cried my eyes out. I didn't know I was going until the day before," he says.
"Manchester City were top of Division One. I went home [after meeting with City] and was stood in my little council house crying my eyes out because I had to leave home.
"I'd never been away from home, I lived with my grandmother just over the road from my mum and dad. I was 19, 20, hadn't been away from home.
"I went and signed the next morning on the Monday. I made my debut on the Wednesday against Manchester United. I was number six. Seven was Summerbee, eight was Bell, nine was Franny Lee, 10 was Dennis Law, 11 was Rodney Marsh. I thought what am I doing here.
"We played that Man Utd game on the Wednesday and afterwards Rodney Marsh asked me go into town. He took me into town and took me George's bar. George [Best] was in there. I was sat with Rodney and he came over and introduced himself.
"I was amazed who knew how I was. We just clicked. A few months later we got an apartment in the town centre and that was the end of my career!"
Horswill laughs and the conversation comes back to the current day. Fifty three years on from Horswill's goal against Lisbon, how fitting that Sunderland's first European trip of the campaign is to Portugal. Again, like in 1973, it's a fixture involving a second tier side, though this time it's not the Black Cats but their opponents Torreense.
How far can Sunderland go?
"If they played like they did two days ago, they'll be struggling a bit," says Horswill.
"But if they play like they did last year, they can go a long way.
"I'm really looking forward to the competition. I've lost my goal record now so they can score as many as they want!
"The supporters will love it - to go away with your mates, Mackems in Milan, it will be incredible."