Tony Donnelly was a busy teenager, working as a coal merchant in his native Middleton, active in local football and enrolling in the Royal Garrison Artillery.    While playing army football, he converted from goalkeeper to right-back and it was in that position that he was signed and deployed by Manchester United, with whom he would win a League Championship medal in 1910-11. When he was no longer in contention at Old Trafford – one report of 1912 said that he was

“very apt to allow his zeal and super-abundant energy to outrun his discretion and better judgment”

– he returned to local football via an Irish summer. Among the first wave of men to arrive at the Western Front in 1914, Sgt Donnelly was injured in Flanders in 1915 and transferred to the RAMC. By the time he joined Southampton for the first season of post-war football, he was 33. Even so, he had a “sound” match upon his immediate introduction to the Southern League. He opted, however, for a speedy return to his home town, where he later served as a special constable. By 1939, however, he had moved on to become a textile worker.