Born on board the SS Tamer off the coast of Japan to an English father and Greek mother, Jack Dorkin was educated in Ipswich before becoming a draughtsman with the Royal Engineers, connected to the Ordnance Office. Having been based in Glasgow, Dorkin moved down to Aldershot in 1891 and, playing for the Engineers, he came to the notice of the St Mary’s committee.

They duly “bought him out” of the army to make him one of the club’s earliest professionals.

In the course of a season-and-a-half before the Southern League was formed in 1894, Jack was a prolific scorer, grabbing nine goals in six Hants Senior Cup games alone. If he was past his best by 1894, he nevertheless scored in each of his three Southern League outings. Having retired in 1895, he was persuaded, two years later, to take part in a “sixes” tournament, in which he broke a leg. He continued to flit in and out of football – from coaching Southampton’s Reserves to a come-back with Basingstoke and management at Romsey – while starting a sports-outfitters with sometime team-mate, Victor Barton, and then running a pub in Ryde. All of which he left behind to become a company secretary for a radiator- manufacturer in London in 1910 and an immigrant to Toronto in 1912.