Born of Irish parents on Teesside, Jack Small had had a season in Sunderland’s Reserves when Southampton offered him Southern League football.

He responded with the kind of sturdy half-back play that is guaranteed to gee up team-mates and please the fans. Having switched to right-back for his last dozen games in 1914-15, he joined the Royal Army Medical Corps in 1915. After 16 months in Salonika, a serious bout of malaria caused him to be invalided home. Once recovered, he played for Harland & Wolff in the final season of war-time football and then joined Thornycrofts in time to feature in their famous FA Cup-tie with Burnley in January 1920.

That summer, he joined Mid-Rhondda, where Reg Slade had just arrived as player-manager. The club was in such a mess (described in Slade’s profile) that it could not meet the transfer fee of £25. Jack, who was still registered with the Saints, had returned to Southampton by the time Mid-Rhondda found the money. After three more seasons playing for his former local clubs, Jack left the game for the merchant navy, serving as an assistant storeman on the Empress of Scotland, until he retired in 1939.