Battersea-born, Phil Mead initially got a job working in a retail shop in London’s West End while trying to establish himself as a cricketer with Surrey, but when they decided not to offer him a contract in 1903, he decided – with the encouragement, some say, of CB Fry – to make a new home in Southampton, with a view to qualifying to play his cricket for Hampshire. Working on Fry’s Training Ship the Mercury at Hamble, coaching the cadets, he had by 1906, satisfied the residential requirement, and was beginning to establish himself as a left-handed opener, when he decided on a football upgrade.

He had been playing locally, but now joined Southampton. This was in no way a bid to emulate Fry. He had no intention of playing for more than a season or two and no expectation of making the first team. Indeed, he would have been content to remain an inside-forward in the Reserves had it not been for a goalkeeping crisis in the Southern League side.

On 21 December 1907, Phil was in the Reserves side that was due to play at Fratton Park, when he was summoned to The Dell: Bert Lock and Tom Burrows were unavailable, so would he play in goal against West Ham? Perhaps his ability as a slip-fielder – he would take 675 first-class catches – was seen as a transferable skill. Any such assumption was barely put to the test: he needed to make only two saves and kept a clean sheet in a 0-0 draw. That was as far as it went.

From 1908, he concentrated on cricket, playing in 17 Tests for England and remaining with Hampshire until 1936. He had become involved in a sports equipment business with fellow-Saint, Walter Toomer and when Toomer went off to fight during WW1 was able to run the business at close quarters. He had offered himself up for enlistment but suffered the indignity of being turned down on medical grounds on account of his varicose veins. In 1919 he set up the Philip Mead Bat company which initially did well but then went into receivership. Another venture also started well and then failed – he had been given tenancy of the Bear Cross Inn at Winton near Bournemouth but, by 1936 the pub had gone bust and the brewery turfed him out which meant he and his family were, for a time, homeless. (He had married Beatrice, the sister of another Saints and Freemantle player, Frank Englefield). Phil then became a travelling salesman for Spillers agricultural merchants and for a time even sold light bulbs for a living. Eventually he was offered a coaching post at Framlingham College in Suffolk, for whom he played Minor Counties cricket in 1938-39.  A detached retina caused him to lose his sight in one eye in 1941 and then the other started to deteriorate a year later.

Completely blind by 1948, he bore such a blow with courage and would continue to go to Dean Park, in Bournemouth, to “hear” the cricket, up until his death at the age of 71. Phil Mead established more cricket records than can be justifiably conveyed in a football book. Nobody has scored more for any county than his 48,892 runs for Hampshire. He dominated their batting, top-scoring in every season from 1913 to 1936, bar two: John Arnold, then the Saints’ outside-left, pipped him in 1930 and 1932.