Crossword Genius

The old strayed badly in the recent past (9)

Ross

I believe the answer is:

yesterday

'the recent past' is the definition.
(I've seen this before)

'the old strayed badly' is the wordplay.
'the old' becomes 'ye' (resembles a historical spelling of 'the').
'badly' is an anagram indicator (letters in the wrong order).
'strayed' with letters rearranged gives 'sterday'.
'ye'+'sterday'='YESTERDAY'

'in' is the link.

(Other definitions for yesterday that I've seen before include "Song about break-up" , "Recent time" , "not so long ago" , "Day before today" , "back then" .)

I've seen this clue in The Times.
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