A modest and unassuming 18 year-old, Frank Grayer was offered terms at The Dell, following a trial, in August 1908.

Despite having essential attributes for a full-back – solid and reliable, with a good turn of speed – Frank found his path to first-team football blocked initially by Jack Eastham and then by Dan Gordon, to say nothing of the occasional cover provided by the versatile John Robertson. Scouts were known to be looking at the Saints’ surplus full-back – until First Division Liverpool bit the bullet and paid £100 to take Frank to Anfield. In the three seasons before “official” football made way for the war-time substitute, Frank made only one first-team appearance for Liverpool. He joined the Royal Garrison Artillery and was so badly injured at Ypres that he would never play football again. Returning to Southampton at the War’s end, he worked for the furnishers, Shepherd and Hedgers.

He retired in 1955 – by which time his son, Frank Jr, had been released by Southampton, after two games for the Reserves in 1949, to become a prominent outside-left in Hampshire and Wiltshire football.