While working in the Wearside shipyards, Ned Liddle (not Liddell) had graduated through local football to Sunderland. After a season without getting a game in the First Division, he was preparing to join Second Division Lincoln City, when he received, and accepted, an offer of a trial with Southern League Southampton.

Duly signed for 30 shillings (£1.50) a week, Ned had an excellent physique for a centre-half, but lacked the necessary pace.

Restricted mainly to Reserves football and a handful of games in the Western League, his one Southern League outing came in the memorable 9-1 defeat of Northampton in January 1906.

He left at the end of that season, seeking first-team football – and found it most especially at Clapton Orient, for whom he made almost 200 appearances in Division II. Ned eventually made it into the First Division with Arsenal, getting two games in 1914-15. He remained with the Gunners through the First World War and for the first post-war season, after which he had two more footballing careers: as a manager, climaxing in winning the Third South with Luton in 1937; and then as a scout until his death at 90 in 1968. His scouting scalps included taking the young Alf Ramsey to Portsmouth in 1939, on amateur terms – albeit for Southampton to whisk him away before he could make his mark.