Emerging from local parks football, 17 year-old “Jack” Goodchild signed for Southampton as an understudy to the regular goalkeeper, Tom Burrows

He was barely 18 and still an amateur when he deputised for Burrows in the last Southern League game of the 1909-10 season. But his signing pro, that summer, coincided with the return of Arthur Brown from Portsmouth, which meant that the young ’keeper, now the third-choice, had only four games in 1910-11. So, still only 19, he abandoned professional football for a job in the Docks. Jimmy Yates, the ex-Saint-cum-scout – last seen operating in Vic Glover’s profile,  – was by then working thereand recommended the Southampton reject to Manchester City of the Football League’s Division I. It would be an outstanding move for Jack. In a career interrupted by war – when he was back home and guesting for the formidable works-team at Harland & Wolff – his 200-odd games for City included the 1926 Cup Final.

Soon after their defeat at Wembley, he returned to Southampton, to run the Royal Albert Hotel, while playing, part-time, for a couple of seasons for Guildford City in the Southern League. During the Second World War, he turned out, by now 50, for Stoneham Nomads, having taken over the Cricketers Arms in Eastleigh, where he remained until his early death in October 1950.