Harry (“The Wolf”) Wood was special – not just as arguably the most popular Southampton player of the club’s Southern League era, but for the “When Harry Met Billy” drama that brought about his signing for the Saints. Billy Dawson, the Stoke trainer who had defected to Southampton as part of the “Stoke invasion” (explained in Jack Farrell’s profile), had gone back to the Potteries in the 1898 close season for a break and intending to take in the Chester Cup horse racing meeting. While checking the runners and riders in a newspaper he spotted an article on how Wood had not yet renewed terms with Wolves, the club he had joined as a teenager and with whom he was now in a second spell, following a fleeting interlude with his home-town Walsall.

Harry had pedigree: three FA Cup Finals as Wolves’ inside-left, one of them as a winner; and three England caps. Billy went looking for Harry. Eventually, after scouring the town he located him in a Walsall pub, he set about persuading him to leave the mighty Wolves, founder-members of the Football League, for Southampton, who had just won the Southern League for the second successive season. Harry signed, for £5 a week, the next day, completing the formalities in the waiting room at Birmingham New Street station despite learning Wolves had accepted a £400 offer from Everton while Dawson never did get to the races.

Immediately made captain, Harry became the general, bringing his vast experience, his superior passing and overall influence to bear, as he presided, for seven seasons, over one of the most successful periods in the club’s history, adding four Southern League championship medals and two more FA Cup runners-up medals to his collection.

After which, he spent another seven years as Pompey’s trainer. Having watched his son, Arthur Wood, progressing through local football in Portsmouth, on his way to becoming Southampton’s goalkeeper, Harry retired from football to become the licensee of the Milton Arms, a stone’s throw from Fratton Park. He outlived Arthur by more than ten years.