A soldier attached to Netley Hospital, Bill Measures played regularly for Geneva Cross, who were based at the hospital. That left him free to register with St Mary’s, not only to play for them in friendlies but to participate, if needed at half-back, in their various Cup commitments. In fact, the Saints called upon him only twice for Cup matches: the quarter-final of the Hants Junior Cup in 1889-90; and their first-ever FA Cup-tie, two seasons later. After one more friendly appearance, Bill was posted to Barbados. He then served in India, was mentioned in dispatches from the Boer War and awarded the D.C.M. He was in the Mediterranean Expeditionary Force at the start of the First World War but in 1916, however, when he was 49, he was stood down, as physically unfit. Becoming a quarter-master in the Red Cross Society, he moved to Manchester after the War.