Arthur Hartshorne arrived at The Dell, having previously played all of his football in his native Staffordshire, the last three seasons having been spent in the Football League with Port Vale in Division II and then with First Division Stoke.

He was billed as a “well-built full-back”, although more critical fans might have judged him to be a little overweight. Yet his pace belied his bulk and, with his superior ball control, he was at times brilliant.

After a season in which he was ever-present in an FA Cup-run to the quarter-final and the regular left-back in the side that came second in the Southern League, he upped and left for Northampton, that League’s bottom team. In 1939 he was a blacksmith’s labourer in the town of his birth.