Bobby Weale came through Welsh football, capped at schoolboy-level along the way, to First Division West Ham. After only three appearances in two seasons, he fared better at Third South Swindon, without ever quite establishing himself. Yet Southampton still paid a club record of £1,000 to bring him to The Dell in December 1928.

A fast, clever right-winger, Bobby settled quickly

and was soon among the goals, notably with a Boxing Day hat-trick against Notts County. In the following season, his younger brother, Tom, was on Southampton’s books and featured once for the Reserves before carving out a career at Crewe Alexandra and Burnley. Bobby, however, had two decent spells of action, through to March. He then fell out of favour, but was nevertheless offered terms for 1930-31. He declined them and set off on a nomadic journey that took him in and out of Wales, in and out of the Football League and even to the Irish League. Tom and he later worked at a car-assembly factory in Coventry although by 1939 he was a storeman at Swindon Railway Works.