A regular inside-left for the Reserves throughout the 1912-13 season, John Sibley’s only first-team appearance came in a Southern Charity Cup match. He figured well enough in a drawn game, but then settled back in the Reserves and did not feature in the replay, six weeks later.

Indeed, he would never play for Southampton again – nor, it seems from the available records, for anybody else. A fortnight after the 1918 Armistice, he died from ‘Spanish flu’, after being on board the HMS Liberty, on which he had been serving as a fireman.