A mechanical engineer in Portsmouth’s dockyards, Stan Clements was playing his football in Gosport, where ex-Saint Stan Cribb was his mentor. On Cribb’s recommendation, Clements came to Southampton during the War, once as a guest and then, from July 1944, as a registered player. Despite being included in Southampton’s prestigious close-season tour of Brazil in 1948 (see below), he rarely made the first-team in those immediate post-war years, when he became the longstanding understudy, at centre-half, to Eric Webber (also see below).

It would be fair to say that he became an exemplar of players long remaining at a club, waiting patiently for a first-team break.

Stan’s rationale was that “you played for the club”, although he admitted that he was perhaps “too contented” with his lot, as captain of a successful Reserves team, while studying civil engineering at college. After four-and-a-half seasons in which he had only 16 first-team outings, he came in for Webber and made a further 100-odd senior appearance. Then, following a Hampshire League stint at Basingstoke, he put his engineering qualifications to use in two continents: Asia – Nepal and Vietnam – but Africa much more so – Sudan, Uganda and most especially Kenya, where his footballing commitments included coaching the national team. In 1981, Stan was appointed OBE for his services to engineering in Africa. Returning to the UK in the 1980s, he settled back in Gosport.

With the death of Charlie Purves on 20 June 2013, Stan, now living in a Gosport nursing home became the oldest living ex-Saint, just five days before his 90th birthday.