Little is known of Bertie Barnes as he was a late addition (signed 16 March) to a weakened Saints’ side at Southend in March 1914. Playing at outside-left in what was the final Southern Alliance fixture of 1913-14, he did well enough in a one all draw and was appraised by the local press as being

“young, fast and centres well, but he parted with the ball too soon”.

Within a few months the Great War was declared and although he survived the carnage (see below paragraph) his football career appears not to have. He ended back in his native Kent and when the WW2 broke out and a mini registration process was carried out he was listed as being a paper maker in Malling, which was just a few miles from the place of his birth.

He was of an age to volunteer for service in the First World War or to be conscripted after 1916. But he is in a minority of Saints of that era for whom the club historians and their research associates have been unable to find any details of what they did, whether militarily or at home, in 1914-19.