Until he upped sticks and moved to Southampton in 1913, Buxton-born Fred Smith had played all of his football in Derbyshire or Cheshire, never very far from his birth-place. That included four seasons in the Football League, where his performances for Second Division Stockport had earned him a handful of games in Division I with Derby County. But after leaving League football, he had gone part-time, combining his job in Macclesfield as a motor mechanic with playing for the local club in the Manchester & District League.

His initial reward for coming out of that semi-retirement was to captain Southampton’s Reserves and to make his Southern Alliance debut. But then, after the Saints’ three successive defeats in the Southern League, Fred broke into that side at right-back and played in more than half of the remaining games – despite being fined £1.10s [£1.50p] in December 1913, for an off-field incident, and warned about his future behaviour. At the end of the season, he retired, anew, from full-time football, but continued to find part-time outlets after the War. In 1939 he was a club steward in Macclesfield.