Londoner David Connolly came from an Irish family and had amassed 41 caps for the Republic by the time he arrived at St Mary’s. He had been a regular scorer at all of his English clubs – most notably at Wimbledon –

and had once been the highest-paid player in Dutch football,

where he scored 29 goals in 32 games on loan to the Rotterdam club, SBV Excelsior. But after 2005 – apart from 2006-07, when he had helped Sunderland regain their Premiership status – his final years tended to consist of one struggle after another to remain fully fit. Nevertheless, Alan Pardew gambled that he would make an impact in League One and, sure enough, when free from all his niggles, he delivered, bringing deft and intelligence to the forward-line and contributing the occasional classy finish.

Newly-relegated Saints were about to embark on an exciting three seasons that would lift them from League One, starting with a minus 10 points-deduction, to the Premiership. David was an in-and-out figure during that time, but the in-periods provided some memorable moments – none less so, perhaps, than

the 2011 run-in to the promotion, in which he scored three times in the last six games.

Not having started between mid-September and Easter Monday, he had the fans singing that he was “back from the dead”. David protested, but it was surely an apt metaphor, most affectionately sung. What can only be called his “resurrection” continued in 2011-12, but his Championship season pretty much ended with the late arrival of Tadanari Lee and Billy Sharp. Which explains why he was released, aged 35, in the summer of 2012, only to pitch up at Fratton Park after a few months without a club.