Although he never made the first team at his home-town club, Gerry Kelly then spent nine years, totalling almost 200 appearances in the Football League, with five different clubs, including First Division Huddersfield. Despite having all that experience, along with pace that he could use on either wing or at centre-forward, Gerry spent more time in Southampton’s Reserves than in their first team.

Having featured in one of the three games at the start of the 1939-40 season that were expunged when war broke out, he remained registered with Southampton for the first two war-time seasons, during which his only football was as a guest for Shrewsbury. After which, his professional career was over.