As a 15 year-old, Paul Rideout trained with First Division Southampton for a year in John McGrath’s youth set-up. Lawrie McMenemy wished to sign him as an apprentice but, as he recalled in the Saints match-day programme, 25 years later, he wasn’t ready to do that.” He opted, instead, to join Third Division Swindon, where he “had also been putting some time in… They were very good to me and I still have a soft spot for them”.

Paul quickly impressed at Swindon and Aston Villa’s manager Tony Barton signed him for First Division football, when he was still two months shy of his 19th birthday and, incredibly, had never so much as watched a live Division I match.

Five years passed and Chris Nicholl, prompted by his new assistant, Tony Barton, spent £350,000 to bring Paul back from a three-year spell in Italy. Nicholl described him at the time as

“a good, front target-man, who offers good running power and is good in the air.”

That was a fair assessment, even if it neglected to mention Paul’s mobility, speed and bravery. He enjoyed his time at The Dell, playing in what he considered to be “a fun team” – not least when Nicholl opted for a 4-2-4  formation, as in the memorable 1989 trouncing of Liverpool, Paul’s favourite Dell memory, described in some detail in Matt Le Tissier’s profile.

Paul “liked Chris Nicholl: he was a good guy and good to play for” and when Nicholl left in 1991, Paul soon followed him out the door – to Division I new boys, Notts County. But he was soon with Rangers, briefly, and then with Everton for five years. After a spell in the States, sandwiched by two in China, Paul joined his last club, Tranmere Rovers. Southampton fans will not need reminding of how he grabbed their attention and gave Glenn Hoddle his – up to then – worst experience in football. The Saints had, by half-time, gone 3-0 up in a Fifth Round FA Cup replay at Prenton Park. But Paul scored a 21-minute hat-trick in the second half and then set up the winner. With that final, classic haunting act over an old club, he emigrated to the USA in 2002, where he has coached in Kansas City, Missouri.In March 2011, his son Jordan, then an U-18 player with the Kansas City Wizards, spent three days training with the Saints at Staplewood.