The careers of Dan Harding and Dean Hammond have notable overlaps. They were together at Brighton, their first club in each case, as teenagers. And both were signed by Alan Pardew in the summer of 2009, along with Rickie Lambert, as players who might carry the Saints back up to the Championship.

A blond, energetic, almost swashbuckling, left-back,

Dan had had more second-tier experience, with Leeds and Ipswich, than Dean. It would take him two seasons, however, to get back to that level with the Saints. A regular for them in 2009-10, he displayed his versatility by playing at right-back in the JPT Final, looking remarkably comfortable on his “wrong” foot. His second season was even better, in that he was one of five members of Southampton’s promotion-winning side to be voted into the PFA’s divisional Team-of-the-Season. And yet his manager, Nigel Adkins, promptly bought Danny Fox, who seriously restricted Dan’s Championship appearances. Adkins nevertheless gave Dan a new three-year contract, during that season, only to sever it prematurely, upon promotion to the Premiership, by selling him to second-tier Forest. In the summer of 2015 he was out of contract and had offers from several clubs including Portsmouth. He chose to join Eastleigh however saying at the time “I had the best three years of my life at Saints and I consider myself a fan. It would not have felt right for me to sign for them”. Living locally one can’t help but suspect Dan had his head firmly screwed on in more ways than one.