Gordon Watson’s home debut was a match long to linger in the memory for, going into the 88^th minute Saints were 1-0 down to Newcastle and the relegation odds looked likely to shorten to evens. Then Gordon’s header was saved only for Neil Heaney to prod in the equaliser and then he scored in injury time to put his new club 2-1 in front. Neil Shipperley added a third to put the seal on a memorable Dell night. Gordon or “Flash” to most who knew him had arrived a few days before that evening, after Jeff Kenna’s sale to Blackburn helped finance the £1.2m transfer.

Not the most skilful of forwards, his swashbuckling do-or-die style pleased the crowds and unsettled defences enough to be considered a handful.

Unfortunately the manager who oversaw his arrival left for Manchester City a few months later and incoming boss Graham Souness didn’t fancy him, so he moved to Bradford City for £500,000. He had not been there long when in a horror tackle against Huddersfield’s Kevin Gray he suffered a double fracture of a leg which to all intent and purposes brought a premature end to his career at the top level. Bradford City took Huddersfield to the civil law courts on negligence charges which were found and Gordon received a payment of £960,000. He did enjoy a good season with Hartlepool in 2001-02 but hung up his boots for good in 2003.

A year later – and living back in the Southampton area – he became a director of Kicker Sports Ltd in Eastleigh and got involved in property renovation. He also worked for Saints’ in-house radio station ‘The Saint’ and for its successor ‘Radio Hampshire’ as a match analyser. He also was a pundit for G-Sports an African PPV Sports channel and did some scouting for his old Sheffield Wednesday team-mate Nigel Pearson when he was manager at Leicester