A sturdily built, but exceptionally fast, outside- right, Charles Curtin moved to Southampton from fellow-Southern Leaguers, Norwich City, in April 1914. With football continuing, during 1914-15, despite the outbreak of war, Curtin featured in a fruitful right-wing partnership with Arthur Dominy for two-thirds of that season’s League matches and in a brief FA Cup-run.

When League football was abandoned in 1915, Charles returned to the north-east, played some non-league football and served in the army, initially in his home regiment, the Northumberland Fusiliers, and latterly in the Labour Corps.

After the War, he spent a while in Newcastle United’s Reserves, before winding down in the non-league game, although he did fit in three games at York before his knee gave out. He was briefly involved in professional sprinting but found more orthodox employment in the Silksworth Colliery, as a maintenance worker, and then in a Sunderland paint factory – until 1936, when he moved to Bedfordshire. In 1939 his occupation was registered as working in an RAF camp mobilisation cloths store in Bedford.