The sporting all-rounder Bernard Harrison was described by his biographer, Kevin Smallbone, as

“perhaps too talented for his own good.”

If that partly explains why Bernard failed to achieve more either as a footballer or cricketer, Smallbone also blames his limited career in the Football League upon “insular and narrow-minded” managers, suspicious of “individuality, skill and flair.” Those attributes were serving him well enough in the Third South at Crystal Palace for Soccer Star to predict, in 1957, that once Palace’s fortunes improved, he would become “one of the most talked about wingers in the game.”

But Palace were going down and Bernard decided – as a Hampshire 2nd XI-opener, understudying Gray and Marshall – also to understudy Terry Paine at The Dell.

His three games in the 1959-60 promotion season – with Paine switching to elsewhere in the forward line – should have earned him, he believed, a permanent place as Saints’ No.7, with Paine moving to No.10, the problem shirt that season.

Instead, he was shunted off to Exeter, where his League career petered out. This Jack-of-all-Trades eventually found a dual-role, however, in which he could excel – as a Maths teacher and sports coach at Farleigh School, near Andover. His acclaimed statistical memory was needed in his final years, when he became blind. Interviewed for Paine’s biography shortly before his death, he was surrounded by shelves of Wisden and Rothmans that he couldn’t see. But he rattled off – correctly – the stats of that No.10 spot that he still felt should have been Paine’s.