As witnessed by the medals and badges on his shirt in the photograph, Albie Roles was a bit of a prodigy as a boy footballer or in the words of ‘Orf’ in his cartoon reproduced in the Scrapbook section, a “Boy Bastin at outside left”, so it was no surprise when he was offered amateur terms by Tom Parker in 1938 before he had turned 18. Working during the war at Parsons on the Town Quay making engines for torpedo boats he was in a protected profession and so was able to play more games (188) for Saints during the war years than any other player.

However perversely after the hostilities came to an end he made only four appearances in the 1945-46 FA Cup campaign and had just one league outing at Bradford in 1949.

This anomaly was due to the fact between 1946 and 1948 he was on national service and also Saints had signed left-back, Bill Rochford in 1946 and he rarely missed a game. Bill’s pulled muscle did mean Albie was to get his League outing, at long last, but it coincided with a bit of a calamitous performance by the team in general as they went down 2-0 to the Park Avenue team that hadn’t won in 10 games, a result that went some way in denying the club promotion.

On the small side for a defender he had a wiry frame and was well thought off by his playing colleagues both at Southampton and later at Cowes.

He caught tuberculosis is 1952, along with Vie, his wife and both were hospitalised for two years which brought an abrupt end to his playing days. With recovery came employment at Harland and Wolff and then nearly 20 years as a technician at the Southampton Institute of higher Education. He did do a little bit of scouting for Ted Bates’s youth outfit at CPC in the late 50s but he decided that standing on windswept touchlines without a single ‘discovery’ to his name was a fruitless exercise. Hr reached the age of 90 in 2011 and the Football Echo interviewed him to mark the occasion.