Having left London for the north-east as a child, Fred Tully was playing local football in Staffordshire, for the Cheddleton Mental Hospital, when he was introduced to the Football League by Aston Villa, high-riders in Division I. After making only half-a-dozen appearances for them in six seasons, he fared considerably better at Second Division Southampton.

Short and stocky, he struck the Echo as “a winger of thrust and enterprise.”

He was capable of playing not only on either wing but also at inside-right in partnership with Dick Neal. After three seasons of fairly regular appearances in the first team, he hardly featured in 1936-37 and duly moved to Third South Clapton Orient. When the War put an end to “official” football and to Fred’s career, he joined his father’s carpentry business (he had been a member of the Amalgamated Society of Woodworkers from 1921 to 1926). He became a war-time auxiliary fireman in Hornsey, Middx.