“A life cut short ere noon” is a line from a poem about Celtic ‘keeper, John Thompson. Although their deaths were not quite as dramatic as that of the Celtic keeper who died in hospital following diving at the feet of a Rangers forward in an Auld Firm derby, the phrase could equally be applied to the Swindon players whose careers were terminated by an early death.

James Munro was the Swindon captain in the 1890s. Only days after he had taken part in a victory over Tottenham Hotspur, he was dead. One earlier book on Swindon’s history puts his death down to falling from a lamp post after over celebrating in the Red Cow, which then stood in Princes Street. Now it is thought that the flu-like symptoms from which he was suffering and which his wife had described when writing to the Club to explain his absence from training was in fact meningitis.

Munro had travelled down from Scotland to join Swindon, tempted by the offer of work as a joiner with Town director Charlie Williams, which he could do alongside that of a professional footballer.

A short but stocky midfielder, he was well-liked by the Swindon crowd, and marriage to the daughter of the landlord of the Clifton Hotel made it seem he was in Swindon for the rest of his career.

Sadly, that career was all too short. For those who like conspiracy theories, his wife purchased his grave two days before he died.

If disease........

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