In the course of more than 10 seasons – and 400 League games – for his home-town Grimsby, Kevin Moore spent the 1983-84 season, and most of the next, in a centre-back partnership with Chris Nicholl. After which, Nicholl left to manage Southampton. Two years later, he bought Kevin, who was by now at Second Division Oldham, a level to which he had climbed, through two promotions, with Grimsby.

But now, at 29, he was being offered Division I football. A clause in his contract gave him the right to leave early should an opportunity arise to play at that level. That clause was duly invoked and so Nicholl brought to The Dell

a tough, committed centre-back, who was not only competent enough in the air to cut it in the top flight, but who could play a bit on the ground, too.

For the next season-and-a-half, Kevin was a regular, in a pairing first with Kevin Bond and then with Russell Osman. That arrangement was disturbed during the 1988-89 season by the signing of Neil Ruddock, but for the next two-and-a-half seasons, Moore remained one of three centre-backs whom Nicholl was able to shuffle, as form and fitness dictated.Then, in 1991-92, amid the turmoil of Ian Branfoot’s first season, Osman and Ruddock finished with Southampton, while Jon Gittens, Richard Hall and Steve Wood were now challenging for a place in central defence. Yet Kevin was still there, scoring at Wembley in the 1992 ZDS Final. And subsequent to the rebranding, for the 1992-93 season, of top-flight football, Kevin still had 32 Premiership appearances left in him, before he rejoined Ian Branfoot, at the age of 36, at fourth-tier Fulham. Following two seasons at that basement-level, Kevin, a qualified chartered surveyor, remained at Fulham, as their first-ever stadium safety-officer, doubling as  their training-ground manager. After which, he returned to Hampshire as a scaffold-engineer at Fawley.

But he soon began to show signs of a condition that would be identified as Pick’s disease, a form of dementia. As the illness worsened, Kevin came to need constant nursing. Various fund-raising events were organised – principally by Ian Ritchie, a doyen of Otterbourne FC, Kevin’s final club  – to help finance Kevin’s care: from golf-days to Q & A evenings, with Lawrie McMenemy and Matt Le Tissier to the fore. Sadly, Kevin died on his 55th birthday.