On 4 March 2002, a ’phone-call to St Mary’s College informed 15 year-old pupil, Drew Surman, that he would be in the Reserves’ squad for that evening’s match, away to Chelsea. He duly came off the bench to replace Matt Le Tissier – Drew’s favourite Saint from the day of his first visit to The Dell, just before his ninth birthday in August 1995, when he watched Matt score a hat-trick v Nottingham Forest.  

Drew then had to wait nearly four years before his introduction to the first team. Born in South Africa to Sotonian parents, Drew returned to the city with his parents when he was eight and joined the Saints’ Centre of Excellence¸ two years later. After a couple of loan spells, he was soon making his mark as a polished midfielder, whose versatility meant that he could also play as a full-back or further forward, in the hole behind the leading striker.

With his lovely, cultured left foot, he could split a defence or, on occasion, dispatch a ball into the net with venom.

An illustrious career with his parents’ home-town club beckoned, but Drew now became a victim of his own talents when, in the summer of 2009, he was sacrificed in order to help the club stay afloat. He had by now won four U-21 caps for England, after having been watched by South Africa’s manager on a visit to St Mary’s. So with the club newly relegated to League One, in administration and facing possible liquidation,

Drew was a very marketable player to be made available. It looked as though he might remain in the Championship with Sheffield United, but then Wolverhampton, newly promoted to the Premiership and sensing a bargain, expressed an interest. A fee of approximately £1.3m exchanged hands, keeping the financial wolves from the Saints’ door a little longer.

Although he’d not wanted to leave the team he had supported, Drew welcomed the opportunity to shine on the big stage. But having signed him on a three-year contract, the Wolves manager, Mick McCarthy, seemed reluctant to play him: in an anti-climactic season, Drew made only three Premier League starts. In the summer of 2010, Norwich’s Paul Lambert came to the rescue. So eager was he to get his man that Lambert flew to Portugal, where Drew was on honeymoon, to persuade him that Norwich, who’d just won the League One championship, was for him.

It certainly was, in the sense that, despite missing much of the 2010-11 season with a recurrent knee-injury, he was a regular in the Canaries’ run-in to a second successive promotion. He enjoyed a longer, sustained run in 2011-12, as Norwich achieved mid-table comfort. At his second attempt, then, Drew had shown himself to be a Premiership player. He was rewarded with a new three-year contract. There was talk, moreover, that he might yet be capped by South Africa, for whom he remained eligible.

The first year of his new contract was a disappointment. Lambert left for Aston Villa and Drew’s opportunities to impress his successor, Chris Hughton, were limited by injury problems. So he joined Championship new boys, Bournemouth, on loan for 2013-14, and then joined them permanently in September 2014 to help them, under manager Eddie Howe, reach the Premier League eight months later. After their relegation in 2020 his departure from the Vitality Stadium coincided with Eddie Howe’s. He retired in 2021 after a season with MK Dons. In the winter of 2024 he reunited with his old MK Dons manager, Russell Martin by becoming an academy coach back at Staplewood.