Total Appearances: 1.

That stark statistic does not begin to convey the impact that Gunner David Phillips had on football in Southampton.

He was a regular first-teamer in Portsmouth’s elite military side, Royal Artillery, which had recently won both the Army Cup and the Hants Senior Cup, when he played one game, at left-back, for injury-troubled St Mary’s in the Southern League. The Artillery were a Hampshire League side, so he could be “dual-registered” – to turn out, legitimately, for a Southern League club and then return to the RA, to play in the 1896 Amateur Cup Final, which they lost 1-0 to Bishop Auckland. 

Six months later, Phillips, still of the Artillery, was back in Southampton, having signed for Freemantle, new boys in the Southern League’s Division II. Freemantle finished the 1896-97 season third, entitling them to a “test match” with Northfleet, third from the foot of the First Division. With Phillips prominent Freemantle won 3-0 and would therefore be promoted in Northfleet’s stead. Northfleet protested: Phillips, it emerged, had signed for them in September and, while he had never kicked a ball for them, no transfer to Freemantle had been agreed. The Southern League upheld the protest, deducted Freemantle two points – which effectively rendered them ineligible for the “test” – and Northfleet remained in Division One.

Freemantle’s dreams of overtaking St Mary’s had been dashed. And they were, as the Echo put it, “in a somewhat deplorable way financially.” There were even negotiations to merge the two clubs. They floundered. Freemantle withdrew from the Southern League and re-organised as an amateur outfit. Gunner Phillips continued to prosper, meanwhile, with the RA. They won the Army Cup again in 1897 and joined the Southern League’s Division II. Promoted at the first attempt, they struggled, in 1898-99, as amateurs in a professional League. Then, in March 1899, the FA ruled that the Artillery’s treats to their players, on an away trip in the Amateur Cup, rendered them professional and they were expelled from that competition. In an attempt to maintain its amateur status, the club played out the season with reserves. They were relegated and resigned from the Southern League. Re-instated as an amateur, Phillips settled for garrison football. On leaving the army, he remained in Portsmouth, becoming a railway-carrier. It is not recorded whether he ever went to Fratton Park to watch the side that replaced the Artillery in the Southern League.