Working in a Coventry munitions factory during the First World War, the Saints’ trainer, James McIntyre, was handily-placed to keep an eye out for west Midlands football talent. Which is how Reg Hackett and his team-mates, Fred Foxall, came to leave the Birmingham side, Blackheath Town, for Southampton, in time to play in the first post-war season – 1919-20 – the Saints’ Southern League finale.

The holder of two Junior international caps, Reg became an instant fixture at left-half – until March 1920. Although he hardly featured after that, there was no reason to suppose that he would not be at the club when they kicked-off the 1920-21 season in the Football League. By that time, though, he was playing for his home-town team, after a brief stop at Redditch.

After which, he wandered around the west Midlands football scene from which he had been plucked. In 1939 he was a ‘caster of non-ferrous metals’.