A lyrical tug at the ol’ heartstrings. The insidious lure of nostalgia.

Don’t, even for a fleeting moment, believe Marc Mueller somehow immune.

“They’re starting,’’ the Calgary Stampeders’ running backs coach was saying the other day, “to demo the old place. I saw a photo in the Leader-Post a little while ago.

“My whole life, in the lives of some many people living there, the one constant in Regina has been Taylor Field/Mosaic Stadium.

“It’s been the one place where everyone shared these great experiences.”

Since 1936, when it debuted as the Park de Young on the same site, then on to its Taylor Field incarnation 11 years later and finally Mosaic Stadium, the home of the Saskatchewan Roughriders has stood out against the western-Canadian skyline at 1910 Piffles Taylor Way.

Taylor Field is currently being demolished (Photo by Canadian Press/Derek Mortensen)

“It’s one of the places anywhere where you play minor-league football, junior football, university football and go to watch the big team,’’ reminded Mueller. “It’s as if you grow up both as an athlete and a football fan in there.

“Just special. Real special.

“Maybe I can get my dad to steal a brick or something as a keepsake.”

Sunday, the Stampeders made their first competitive visit into the $278 million, 33,000-seat offshoot, the New Mosaic Stadium. The the Regina-born-and-reared Mueller was suitably impressed.

“It’s unbelievable,’’ he says. “I really like the new stadium. Everything’s first class. We were in there for the Combine. The suites are nice, the concourse, the video replay screen … I guess initially it felt kinda strange but it has that big-time pro stadium feel.

“The atmosphere was cool – it was loud and it was lots of fun. It felt like a big-time football game.”

Mueller’s link to the old place, of course, runs deep. His father Larry served as assistant GM of the Riders there for a spell. His grandad, The Little General, Ron Lancaster, held sway in the green and white, holy vestments to folks on the flatlands, for 18 seasons, 16 as the greatest quarterback the franchise had ever, or will ever see, and two as head coach.

Lancaster hands off to running back George Reed during the 1967 Grey Cup (Photo by Canadian Press)

Lancaster’s legacy lives on at the new Mosaic in the form of a statue outside the stadium gates and Mueller got his first in-person look at the monument on Sunday.

“Bo (Levi Mitchell), (video crew members) Bruce (McCabe) and Ross (Folan) and I cab to every game,” he explains, “and luckily the taxi driver dropped us off right in front of the statue and I got Bruce to take a picture of me with it.  It was really cool and my family thought it was neat.

“I thought it was great that they made him so much bigger than he really was,” he adds with a laugh, “so I had to stand on my toes to show that I really was taller than him.”

Once inside, Mueller took his place in the coach’s box at press level and saw one of his guys – Jerome Messam – run for 127 yards in a 15-9 Stamps win.

“The game was good,” he says. “It was a slugfest and it was exactly what we expected.”

With the past giving way – as it must – to the present and what lies ahead, is the son and grandson of Rider royalty, a wee bit sad, or excited about the change of venues?

“I’d say a little bit of both,’’ Mueller replied. “Sad, in a way, because the old building meant so much to me, to so many people, in the city and the province. When it’s totally gone, and there’s a blank piece of ground where it stood all those years, well, that’ll take some getting used to.

“But excited, because it was time to move on.

“You can’t stand still.

“The next generation of Regina youth will have the same memories of the new building as I have of the old building.”