Joining the 2nd Battalion Royal Fusiliers as a boy soldier in 1895, David Coleman became a bandsman when turning 18. Not only a good musician he was a member of the Battalion football team which played in the Hampshire League in 1903. The same year he graduated to the full Army side along with another Fusilier, Frank Euscher and both soon came to the attention of the Saints.

Both were given a trial but his performance was

“weak and less effective,”

said the Echo – when the Saints lost 5-1 at Eastville in the Western League. Later in 1904 he was posted to India, the country of his birth, and he remained there until November 1910 when he left the army and went to live in Guernsey. Four months later and missing army life, he re-enlisted with the Royal Irish Regiment as a Bandsman Sergeant.

In August 1914 he was part of the BEF that was sent to the front. He survived the carnage only to be sent to India for three months in May 1919. But while there he became ill and eventually returned to Netley Hospital near Southampton in May 1920 on the hospital ship “Vita”. He was discharged in November 1920 and tried to settle in Freemantle but died the following year, aged only 39. He was buried in a military grave at Hollybrook Cemetry, Southampton, his headstone reading “Till the day breaks”.