Employed at the Stevens shipyard on Southampton’s Weston Shore and playing local football, Tom Burrows came to the attention of the county selectors and was soon keeping goal for Hampshire’s junior side when Southampton duly signed him on Southern League forms.

A dependable deputy to George Clawley, his future was looking promising until injury and loss of form allowed Bert Lock to move ahead of him in the 1907-08 season, following Clawley’s retirement. Regaining possession in April 1909, he then made 48 consecutive appearances in the Southern League. He had only a smattering of games in 1910-11, however, and moved on to Merthyr Town, who immediately won promotion to the Southern League’s First Division.

He was virtually an ever-present in the next two seasons, up to the outbreak of war.

During the hostilities, he was posted to RGA Heavy Battery in Winchester and then he was posted to the Labour Corps in June 1917. He went “absent” in March 1918 and in the August the same year was deemed to have deserted. However there were extenuating circumstances. A son, Thomas who had been born in 1909 had died in December 1917 an event which understandably had hit him badly. In 1921 he was a painter, working for Anglo American Oil Company based in Northam and 18 years later, as WW2 broke out, he listed his occupation as a stevedore in Southampton Docks.