A pupil of St. Mark’s Junior School, adjoining the east side of The Dell, John Coham graduated to Hampshire county football with Eastleigh Athletic. Introduced to the Saints as an amateur in August 1910, he proved to be a fleet-footed left-winger, capable of deputizing, half-a-dozen times in the spring of 1911, for Joe Blake. The team was struggling in the Southern League and he was never on the winning side, yet he was being noticed by other clubs, with both Crystal Palace and Fulham giving notice of an approach.

So Southampton hurried to retain him, on a professional contract, at £3 per week, while he continued in his day-job at Eastleigh Railway Works.

But, come the summer, he was tempted, by a better offer, to play in Scotland’s First Division. That didn’t last and, after a spell with Barrow in the Lancashire Combination and another stint in Scotland, he returned to Southampton. He would get no further first-team opportunities at The Dell, but stayed in his home-town after the Great War, working in the Docks, and then served in the Merchant Navy throughout the Second World War. In 1939 when war broke out he was actually serving on the Queen Mary.