When Tom Robertson, a regular right-back in Saints Southern League championship-winning sides of 1903 and 1904, moved to to Brighton, the Board found his replacement at the other end of the country. Newcastle were the dominant English club of that decade and ex-miner, Bob Benson had only managed one game in his two seasons at St James Park.

Nevertheless he commanded a fee of £150 and he made an instant impression as a big bold defender with a superior sense of anticipation. He also would become especially renowned for his unusual approach to penalty taking; after having the ball placed on the spot by a team-mate, he would run the length of the pitch before belting the ball goalwards. He never managed to score that way for Saints but  when after only one season he returned to the First Division of the Football League with Sheffield United, he became a Penalty King with 20 goals from the spot. He also toured South Africa with the FA in 1910 and won a full cap for England v Ireland in February 1913. Later that year he joined Arsenal then in Division II which meant when football was suspended because of the Great War he was able to participate in munitions work at Woolwich. In 1916 he decided to visit Highbury with his father-in-law and wife to spectate in a London Combination fixture v Reading. Despite being fatigued from a full week’s work, he offered his services to Arsenal when, visiting the dressing room pre-match to “see the boys,” he heard they could only muster a scratch team. Half way through the second half he walked off the field complaining of a stiff leg but within an hour he had collapsed and died in the dressing room. A post mortem discovered that death was “due to hemorrhage into the pleural cavity, due to the rupture of an aneurism of a small branch of the aorta”.

It was a shock to all especially his wife, Jane who told the Coroner’s Inquiry he had been in robust health throughout their 11 years of marriage.

At the end of the season a benefit match was played at Highbury between Arsenal and the ‘Rest of the London Combination’ and the receipts from the 5,000 crowd went to his widow.