Having failed to make the Football League grade in his native West Midlands, Fred Costello did rather better, initially at least, with Southern League Southampton. In his encouraging first season, mainly at inside-left, he was ever-present in a Cup-run to the semi-final and was the star of the show when the Saints knocked out Cup-holders Everton in the quarter-final.

During the following season, however, he was converted to centre-forward. Although this brought him his only goal of the campaign, the move was not a success and he was transferred to fellow Southern-Leaguers, West Ham, before the season was out, in a straight swap with John Foster. He was soon on his way to Bolton.

But again failing to get a Football League start, he began a non-league journey that ended with Salisbury, but not before he had helped Merthyr Town win the Southern League Second Division Championship in 1912, pipping Portsmouth on goal average (see scrapbook). Although he had settled in the Southampton area, he enlisted in his “home” regiment, the 2nd Battalion of the Royal Warwickshires, on the outbreak of war. He was soon on the Western Front, where his battalion was taking heavy losses.

He fell on 19 December 1914 and is buried at Ploegsteert Cemetery in Hainaut, Belgium. Two months after he died his son, Arthur was born. At he time the family was living in the Salisbury Arms in Shirley, where Frank’s wife, Beatrice was the landlady. Arthur (left) was in the Southampton side that reached the final of the English Schools Shield in 1929. He died in 1988.