Ted’s Robinson’s spell with Southampton was an oasis in a football career otherwise spent in Lancashire, starting in his home-town of Hindley, near Wigan, and ending up at Wigan Athletic. He was the third of seven sons, almost all of whom worked down Parsonage Pit in Wigan. One of his party tricks was bending coins and opening bottles with his teeth but it was not for those skills that the Southampton scout recommended him to Arthur Chadwick.

With but one game in the Second Division, at right-back, to show for his three seasons at The Dell, Ted distinctly better over the same time-span at Third North Southport, for whom he exceeded 100 appearances. He then joined Wigan, recently-formed and elected to the Cheshire League, which they won in his first season – and again in the next two. While at Southport the fans and colleagues referred to him as “Reet” Robinson. This was because when he went to clear the ball he would shout in his Wigan accent “Right” which came out as “Reet”.

Serving in the Auxiliary Fire Service during the War, he remained with them until 1959, winning the Queen’s Medal along the way. In the meantime, he had become Wigan’s player-trainer as they struck out, after the War, in the Lancashire Combination.That lasted only a season, whereupon he joined the Hindley Fire Service. After that, he worked for the Electricity Board, from which he retired in 1969. Despite chain-smoking 80 cigarettes a day, he remained very fit up until his fatal heart attack in 1972.