Having left his home-town club in County Cork to join Aston Villa’s academy, Stephen O’Halloran spent five seasons at Villa Park, never making the first team, but having loan spells at four clubs.

By the time he arrived at St Mary’s, this left-sided defender had been capped 13 times at U-21 level for Ireland and had won two full caps.

And, as a loanee at League Two Wycombe, his dozen appearances had included a League Cup semi-final. His next stop was for a month-long loan at Championship Southampton, but blink and you would have missed his sole contribution to the Saints’ cause, as he came on as a sub in a home defeat by Norwich. Warming up for his next loan-match, for Leeds, he injured his cruciate ligament and never got to play for them. And a recurrence of the injury limited him to two appearances on loan at Swansea. In 2010, he eventually left Villa. After a few games for Coventry and Carlisle, he started the 2012-13 season with Nuneaton Town in the Blue Square Bet Premier, but then, some the summer, he joined Stockport, who’d just been relegated to the Conference North. Since then he has stayed in Lancashire.