Football dressing-rooms may be notorious for bestowing nicknames, but Joseph Mills acquired his as a baby. The best pronunciation his three year-old brother, Matt, could manage was “Fish”. It swam and stuck. As he came through the ranks at Southampton, Joseph played for England at both U-17 and U-18 levels.

With a good left foot and an energetic style, he was initially used in wide midfield, but increasingly played at left-back.

Despite that international recognition and his versatility, he couldn’t establish himself, in his debut season of 2008-09, in a side on its way down to League One. Instead, he went on loan to Nigel Adkins’s Scunthorpe, who were heading in the opposite direction. Having played regularly in the run-in to sixth place, Joseph’s hamstring went in the last game and he missed the entire League One play-offs, from which Scunthorpe emerged victorious. Back at third-tier Southampton for the 2009-10 season, he remained mainly out of favour but did get a few games in the JPT, including the Final at Wembley.

Then, early in the next season, Adkins arrived as manager. Given his record for Adkins at Scunthorpe,

Joseph might have been expected to be in with a chance of more first-team opportunities at St Mary’s. But having come on as a substitute in the new manager’s first game, he was packed off to Doncaster – a division above Southampton.

And then, with the Saints promoted to the Championship in 2011, Adkins would sell him to Reading, the club for which his brother, Matt Mills, had been a regular in 2010-11. But Matt had just left for Leicester. After an autumn run at left-back – including the Royals’ 1-1 draw with the Saints, their main promotion rivals – Joseph hardly featured in the second half of the season and was loaned to Burnley for the 2012-13 season. Come the summer, he signed permanently for the Clarets, but immediately went on loan to Oldham who he later joined permanently.

He then swopped life Lancashire for one by the Indian Ocean as he headed for a two-year stint in West Australia. He finally reamed up with his big brother at Forest Green upon his return from down under. In 2020 he signed a two-year contract with newly-promoted to Division One Northampton.