A student at Southampton’s University College,

Lawrence Wallace was a 100/200-yard sprinter in England’s athletic team in the 1938 Empire Games in Australia.

Selected to play for the Universities Athletic Union XI against an Amateur XI at The Dell in February 1939, Lawrence demonstrated his speed down the left wing and was immediately signed by Southampton on amateur forms.

He scored on his debut for the Reserves and, when Harry Osman left for Millwall, he took his place. Playing Second division football at Maine Road proved somewhat overwhelming and Lawrence was unable to use his pace to any effect. The manager, Tom Parker, deployed makeshift outside-lefts for the rest of the season, while Lawrence continued his studies and then represented the AAA throughout the summer of 1939. After serving with the Royal Artillery during the War, he spent the early post-war years teaching at Woking Grammar School for boys and soon began playing for Woking in the Isthmian League. In 1948, however, he went home to the Isle of Wight, to teach at Sandown Grammar School. That briefly took him away from the Cardinals, but he soon continued his playing career with them.