A product of north-east colliery football, Arthur Haddleton adapted impressively to life as a forward in Southampton’s Reserves, with 12 goals from 17 games, and had his first-team moment, late in the 1930-31 season, as a deputy at centre-forward for Willie Haines. By the fourth game of the 1931-32 season,

he had replaced the injured Haines and was on a roll: by scoring in seven consecutive matches, he established a club record that persisted until Ron Davies beat it in 1966.

But then, the goals dried up and Arthur was back in the Reserves, decidedly so as a young Ted Drake began to make his mark. Fulham, newly-promoted to Division II and apparently intent on exploiting Southampton’s financial problems, swooped to take Haddleton (along with Bill Fraser and Bert Jepson) to Craven Cottage.

The move didn’t work out. So Arthur had now to settle for Third Division football, a few games with Swindon being followed by rather more for Walsall, with whom a fractured leg in his first season ended a professional career that had promised considerably more than he delivered. And so, in 1935, he returned to live in Eastleigh. Working for Pirelli General in their plant-and-maintenance department, he turned out for their works-team as a permit player. But after joining the RAF during the Second World War, Arthur’s playing days were ended by a second leg-fracture. He survived the War, but his wife and baby son had the misfortune to be visiting his mother-in-law in Swaythling in November 1940, when the Luftwaffe dropped a parachute-mine, one of its lesser-used devices, which took out the house and killed them all.