A press-tool setter with a lock-manufacturer, playing football almost on his doorstep, George Hadley left Willenhall Swifts to stake a claim for a place in a Southampton side that had been struggling.

A stocky half-back who could also play up front, he was soon a regular in the Southern League team – and popular with it.

Once he had broken into that League side in November 1913, he hardly missed a League or Cup game – until the abandonment of “official” football in 1915.  After one “unofficial” appearance for the Saints, he would play the rest of his war-time football back “home” in Walsall, from where it suited him to join Aston Villa in 1919. After a handful of games with them in the First Division, he found his metier at Second Division Coventry, until a serious injury put an end to his professional career. In 1939 he was the licensed victualler at the Swan Inn, Aldridge in Staffs.