Len Butt was playing on Southampton Common, in a match that was being watched by Bert Lee, then in his second spell as a Saints player. Invited for a trial, Butt progressed from amateur to pro terms and earned himself five first-team games in the Southern Alliance. He joined up in 1914 with the 5th Hampshire Regiment and for the next four years served in India. After the War, he worked at Thornycroft’s and played for their Hampshire League side in 1919-20 – although he managed to miss their famous moment, that season, when they took First Division Burnley to a replay in the FA Cup.

Re-enter Bert Lee, by now Southampton’s trainer, with a proposition that Len rejoins the club as they embarked upon their first season in the Football League. Len’s employers were not amused and promptly sacked him. But he had a full-time contract and duly made his Football League debut in October 1920.

With his crowd-pleasing quickness into the tackle, he would get enough games, this time around, to acquire a nickname: “Badger Butt”.

He finished the season in possession at left-half but had few outings in the 1921-22 promotion season. He joined Boscombe and captained them to second place in the Southern League in 1922-23. Whereupon, the club was elected into the Football League under their new name of Bournemouth & Boscombe Athletic. On 25 August 1923, he was at the right-half in the Cherries’ first-ever League match. As they struggled to adjust to their new status, Len battled on, chalking up 136 League appearances before he returned to the Hampshire League with Cowes in 1927. He was still playing for them in 1932, when they lost to a Newport team, boasting both Bill Rawlings and Arthur Dominy, in the Hants Senior Cup Final.

When he at last retired, Len ran the Sailors Home in Bevois Street for 10 years and, later, the Edinburgh Arms at Six Dials for 27 years. When Len Butt died in December 2003, just 17 days short of his 100th birthday, he was the last surviving player who had signed for Southampton in their Southern League days – albeit that the intervention of war meant that he never appeared in that League, as he leap-frogged from the Southern Alliance to the Football League.

Bearing in mind that the dates-of-death of some of the earliest Saints have not proved traceable, it seems that Len is one of only two ex-Saints – Ernie Nicholls is the other – to have lived into his 100th year, and Len outlived him by nine months or so.