Watty Keay had had a couple of seasons in the Football League’s First Division with Derby County when he joined St Mary’s in time for their second season in the Southern League.

Over the next three seasons, he and outside-left Joe Turner forged a regular partnership reckoned to be the club’s finest left-wing pairing of its Southern League era.

With Watty creating the chances on which Joe capitalised handsomely, the Saints won the Southern League championship in the last two of those three seasons (1896-97-98). After Turner’s departure in the summer of 1898, Watty featured less often, although he did start the 1898-99 season with a unique contribution to the Saints’ history: on 3 September 1898, he scored the club’s first goal at The Dell. (With Matt Le Tissier scoring The Dell’s last ever goal, the book written on the history of that unique football ground had found the perfect sub-title: “From Watty to Matty 1898-2001”.

When he retired in 1900, grateful fans presented him with an inscribed pocket watch. He played for a while locally and ran the Bell and Crown in Melbourne Street from 1904 to 1915. He later worked as a shipwright with Camper and Nicholson at Shamrock Quay. In 1923, he returned to The Dell to coach the Reserves, part-time. And in the 1930s, he scouted for the club.  

He also turned out for the ex-Saints XI and was present for the golden jubilee celebrations in 1935.