Apart from a couple of months with Southampton and the best part of a season at Tranmere, Alex Sharp played all of his football in Scotland. Indeed, had it not been for his being released, for disciplinary reasons, by Ayr United of the Scottish First Division, as the 1929-30 season drew to a close, perhaps he might never have ventured to The Dell in pursuit of a fresh start.

Southampton would prove an unsatisfactory haven. There was time for Alex to get some Reserves games under his belt before being drafted into the first team, at centre-half, for the last game of that season, at The Hawthorns. West Brom had already scored 100 goals in that Second Division campaign, so maybe the five they put past the Saints, that afternoon, should not have reflected badly on the debutant defender, in particular. Whatever, he was not re-engaged and returned to Scotland.