Having left the army in 1909, Harrie Wilcock worked as law stationer in Barnsley, while he attempted to break into to the Football league as a goalkeeper. He started at two Second Division clubs: Bradford Park Avenue, followed by Barnsley. All he had to show it was four games for Barnsley. After a season at Midland League Goole, he had made a dozen Southern League appearances for Brighton, before he rejoined the Royal Field Artillery and headed for France as a Battery Quartermaster Sergeant. He was soon back in England, after being wounded in “The Big Push” at Loos in October 1915, and was deployed as an army-trainer for the rest of the War.

He had recovered from his injuries and was playing for the Land Forces against the Navy at Plymouth in 1918 when a Southampton contingent spotted him. But he did not sign for the Saints until October 1919, after he had been demobbed. Then, conscious of Southampton’s interest, he presented himself at The Dell.

Two months later, he replaced Arthur Wood in the Saints’ goal, so convincingly that he attracted offers from the higher reaches of the Football League.

At the end of the season, with the club poised to enter the newly-constituted Third Division, they reluctantly sold their goalkeeping discovery to First Division Preston. While Southampton recovered their position, more than somewhat, by signing Tommy Allen, it was a bad move for George, who dropped out of League football after his half-a-dozen games in a sorry year at Deepdale. Following a couple of seasons in the Welsh League with Caerphilly, George returned to Southampton, where he worked in the Docks and played for a while for the Docks & Marine Sports in the local Junior League. In 1939 he was living in Northam and was a Railway Shipping Clerk in The Docks.