Ernie Stevenson is rated, in John Crooks’s Who’s Who of Cardiff City,

as “competitive, a strong dribbler and difficult to dispossess.”

What’s more, he top-scored for Second Division Cardiff in 1948-49. Having first played for Wolves, as a teenager, in 1941-42, Ernie had to wait for his First Division debut until “official” League resumed after the War. But there would be few opportunities as an inside-forward at Molineux and he soon dropped down a division to Cardiff.

When the Bluebirds came to The Dell in March 1950, Ernie made such an impression on Southampton’s manager, Sid Cann, that he bought him a few days later, beating First Division Fulham to his signature by parting with a “five-figure fee”, plus Wilf Grant. Thrust immediately into action, Ernie was ever-present for that season’s remaining fixtures – scoring five times in 11 games – and for the first four of the next. But he was then in and out until mid-January, at which point he featured in another player-exchange – with Leeds United’s Frank Dudley.

A glance at Grant’s achievements at Ninian Park should leave you in no doubt that Cardiff got the better of the first swap. But Southampton surely fared the better in the second exchange. Having been unable to settle happily in Southampton, Ernie might have been expected to enjoy himself back in his native Yorkshire, but after 16 Second Division appearances in a year at Leeds, a player who had so recently top-scored at that level for Cardiff quit League football