Denis Pring was an all-round sportsman at school in South Wales, playing midweek rugby, Saturday football and cricket for Newport. Ex-Saint Bill Stroud, player-coach at Newport County, mentored young Denis through the club’s Youth team and Reserves. Bill urged Ted Bates to take a look at his protégé and, after a successful trial, Denis was duly signed up. Naturally right-footed but comfortable in either inside-forward positions, he was quick off the mark and could score goals.

Soon after signing he was pitched into the first team for a couple of games and then played twice more at the end of 1958-59. Denis was a regular member of the Combination side over the next season and a half and was really shaping up in 1960-61, scoring at the rate of a goal every two games, when disaster struck. In a game at Charlton, on a waterlogged pitch, Denis suffered severe ligament damage to his right leg. Sent back on after the initial injury, he collapsed a second time. On his return to Southampton, he was encased in plaster from ankle to hip. At the age of 20, his full-time professional career was over.

Devastating though that was at the time, Denis went for a one-month trial at Poole and stayed 10 happy seasons. With the income from the Dolphins and his job as a telephone engineer, he was better off financially than he had been at The Dell.

He moved on to Basingstoke, where Cliff Huxford Was the player-coach, and then, after a brief flirtation with Fleet, he went to play for another ex-Saint, Pat Parker at Cowes. When Pat left, Denis became the player-manager. After which, he had a couple of seasons with West End and then enjoyed a long association, both on and off the pitch with ex-Saints. Having spent more than 30 years at BT, he worked as a porter at Southampton General Hospital for over a decade until he retired to live in Romsey and ever the active sportsman, he was a member of Wellow Golf Club.