Harry Brophy’s first-class playing career consisted of 37 Division II games for the Saints in 1938-39, plus the humiliating FA Cup exit at Chelmsford, followed by the opening game of 1939-40 that would be expunged from the official records. That one season at The Dell might be considered a success – albeit in a strange sort of way. He scored in each of his first four games, by the last of which he had moved from makeshift centre-forward to his more accustomed position of left-half – and after which he played all across the half-back line and at left-back.

How Harry, approaching 23 as the war was declared, might have progressed, we shall never know. Might he have been a late developer, after having so far failed to realise the apparent potential of his early teens? He had lifted the English Schools Shield in 1931, as captain of Islington’s Schoolboys, and had soon been snapped up by the Arsenal. But, in five years at Highbury, he never made the first team.

His spells on loan included Third Division Brighton, where his chances of promotion from their Reserves was hindered by a broken leg – in a tackle with Reading’s Fred Briggs, who would, coincidentally, join Southampton in the same month as Harry and then have a remarkably similar appearance record at The Dell. Like many of his team-mates, Harry joined the police at the outbreak of war but then decided to enlist in the Merchant Navy. He served on the hospital ship, St Andrew, during the evacuation of Dunkirk. Back in England, he played just once for Southampton in 1940-41 but guested widely through to the 1945-46 season. After this, his career in the British game was over.

But, having emigrated to Queensland in 1949, he played for a while (see scrapbook section) before going into coaching at both club and national level. He then had a brief stint in charge of the Mauritius national side. In 1960, Harry popped home to gain coaching qualifications at Lilleshall, whereupon he returned to coach in Australia. Moving back to England in 1989, he retired to Bedfordshire.