By the time Nottingham-born Roland Wheatley arrived at Southampton, he had had more than his share of hard knocks. Having come out of the pits to join the war effort as a paratrooper, he was one of the first ashore in France at D-Day and he and two pals took two of the first prisoners of the invasion, surprising the crew of a German armoured car. He later “stopped a flying fragment from a Nazi mortar bomb” as the Echo put it.

That handicapped him as footballer. He had neat control and a decent left foot, but keeping fit enough was a problem. So having been restricted to only half-a-dozen Second Division appearances for his home-town Forest, he turned down Major Buckley at Leeds and was thinking about quitting the game while still only 24.

Southampton’s manager, Bill Dodgin, offered him another chance, but Roland would play only once for him – at inside-left in the calamitous game at Bradford, discussed in the profile of his fellow-debutant, Albie Roles. Dodgin promptly departed and, before he could prove himself to Sid Cann, Roland encountered further health problems. In September 1949, the doctors discovered a heart defect and what was thought to be the beginning of arthritis. Advised to retire, Roland was put in charge of the “A” team, but he confounded the medics by playing eight times – half of them at left-half – between November and February. With Joe Mallett a fixture, when fit, at No.6, Roland was effectively competing, then, with Ted Bates and Jack Edwards for a chance at inside-forward.

The signing of Ernie Stevenson created an additional obstacle and Roland would feature only once more in the first team. He tried his luck at three more League clubs, but his first-team appearances for them consisted of five outings with Grimsby in the Third North. So little to show then, for his six seasons at League clubs, trying to overcome his war-wound. And yet, after a non-league swansong, Roland remained, undaunted, in the game, overseeing, throughout Bates’s 18 years of management, Southampton’s scouting network in the Midlands.