Born in Australia, George Horsfall was raised in north-east England. School football in Newcastle was soon followed by war-time service in the Royal Navy. That brought him to Southampton, where he signed amateur forms for the Saints in 1943 and turned out, when on leave, for the Reserves.

The club were so keen for him to sign pro, the following year, that they sent the forms to Devonport to await his return from duties in the North Sea. Yet, once peace-time football resumed, he would make only two first-team appearances – at left-half. That had been his position in the Reserves but, towards the end of the 1947-48 season, he converted to full-back. It was a timely move in the sense that it surely helped him to be included for the eight-match tour of Brazil, in the summer of 1948.

The party left Southampton with only two full-backs in Bill Ellerington and Bill Rochford, pending Alf Ramsey’s arrival for the last four games. But there were four wing-halves, of whom Wilkins had played plenty of Reserves football at full-back, while Ted Ballard would soon be partnering him, in that position, in the first team. So it must have been his versatility that got Horsfall the nod over Jack Gregory, who had been the Reserves’ main full-back over the previous two seasons – unless you prefer to explain it in terms of Gregory’s views highlighted in his profile, on the neglect of local lads, to say nothing of the mutterings that manager Bill Dodgin often favoured fellow-Geordies. However you explain George’s good fortune in 1948, he would certainly repay the club handsomely. Not as a player – he had left within the year to make one appearance in the Third South for Southend, en route to playing semi-pro in the Southern League – but as a coach.

He had had five seasons with Guildford when Ted Bates, who had just been appointed manager, brought him back to The Dell to assist with the coaching. A qualified FA-coach, George spent the next 34 years practising at all levels, qualifying as a physio in 1963, for good measure. His responsibilities and his title would change from time to time, but none of the labels he acquired did justice to what was expected of him. As he explained, upon his retirement in 1989, to the Echo’s Graham Hiley, he initially “not only did the training but laced the balls and studded the boots and then, when the season was over, there would be a fortnight’s holiday and then I would paint the dressing rooms and help with the renovations at the ground.” George reckoned, though, that he managed to “move with the times.

I don’t think I would have remained at The Dell as long as I have if I had not.” In his retirement, he would still pop in to lend a hand with the kit-supervision or simply to jog around the track with Ted Bates. George had been on duty at The Dell on the day he died.