A product of local parks football, Bill Blackmore had featured in Adelaide’s Junior League side before joining Southampton as an outside-right, for the start of the 1912-13 season.

Quickly impressing in the Reserves, he was soon in the first team.

Bill found the consistency a problem, however, and made only spasmodic appearances in what was a struggling team. He duly returned to local football but was back at The Dell come 1915, when, a year into the War, the official League program was at last abandoned. From then until 1919, Bill made 43 more appearances for the Saints in war-time competitions, to say nothing of friendlies, than any other player – and still found time to guest in London. After the war, he remained at The Dell for a season, assisting the Reserves, before enjoying a final spell in the local game.

In 1939 he was listed as being a stokehold scaler in the Southampton docks.