The young Bob Kiddle achieved distinction as a runner from distances ranging from 100 yards to up to a mile, as well as simultaneously taking up football. In 1888 he had easily beaten the American champion, a C. Smith in a half a mile race, his favoured distance. He won between 140 and 150 athletic trophies, all in all, and was the unbeaten Hampshire champion for several years, apart from 1892 when he did not compete owing to a broken leg.

He first foray in football came as a Southampton Harriers player, who with him in their forward line lost to St Mary’s in the 1888 Hants Junior Cup Final. He was somewhat miffed when they subsequently asked him to play in goal and so he threw his lot in with St Mary’s the following season, where he seized the chance to use his pace in all five forward positions. In the three seasons, 1889-92, he played in all of the Saints’ matches in the three “Hampshire” Cup tournaments – Junior, Senior and CCC Charity – and, through to the 1893-94 season, missed only one of the club’s first six FA Cup-ties. Although still only 25 when the Saints began their Southern League journey in 1894, he would make only one appearance in this competition – a 7-3 defeat at Clapton.

An amateur throughout a career, in which he also played in the occasional friendly for Alma FC, Bob had initially been a clerk according to the 1891 census but in 1898, as a “commercial traveller” based in Leicester he pleaded guilty to embezzling more than £30 from Messers Haig and Haig Ltd, his employers, a whisky distillery company, a crime for which he was imprisoned for three months. According to press reports of his trial his actions had been more through naivety rather than being pre-planned and his employers were keen that he was not punished too heavily.

By 1911 he had become a Fish Merchant based back in Southampton, in Commercial Rd, but seven years later, when he passed away in Salisbury, after having a cardiac arrest, his occupation was put down on the death certificate as “Canteen Manager” which possibly indicated some civilian connection to the catering dept of the British Army during WW1.

A younger brother, Edward and two sons – Russell and Robert – played for Southampton’s Reserves, without ever making the first team.