At the supporters’ Silver Jubilee club dinner in February 1951 President Billy Ponting recalled how he joined St Mary’s towards the end of the 1896-97 season.

“ I was turning out for Andover and we found ourselves with only 8 men against Saints Reserves. We did manage to get one more player, who turned out in his ordinary boots and wearing a cutaway tail-coat. Scoring from two penalty kicks Andover won by two goals to one. I suppose I must have done something that day for I was asked to play for the Saints in their next match v Woolwich Arsenal and we whacked them”.

He was at the time a leading amateur in the county, had also played for Ryde Sports and captained Hampshire’s junior side. He went straight into the Southern League side, at left-half in place of the injured John Hodgkinson, and remained for the undefeated run-in to the club’s first Southern League title. He was sporting his Southern League medal 54 years later. Having initially gone back to Andover for the next season, Billy soon took the plunge and signed pro for the Saints in November 1897.

His few first-team outings were limited to the United League, however, and he duly returned to the Hampshire League with Ryde. In 1900, he moved to London, where he played once in the Southern League for Queens Park Rangers. But he soon left football and swopped his original occupation of teaching for a more successful career in insurance brokerage with New York Life. Starting with the Hants, Wilts and Dorset office, as agency director, he became the midlands supervisor in 1907. He then went on to form his own brokerage, WR Ponting Ltd in Oxford St, London. Despite living in London he maintained his links with the Saints and was appointed president, in 1945, of the Southampton FC Supporters’ Club.