He was one of Brighton and Hove Albion's finest goalkeepers - a 12 stone, six footer whose prodigious long-distance kicks and punched clearances earned him the nickname Pom-Pom.

Robert Whiting, who made 320 appearances for the club leading up to the First World War, died on the battlefield at Vimy Ridge on April 28, 1917.

Now the campaign medals of the keeper from Albion's "golden era" have surfaced at auction.

The 1914-15 Star, British War and Victory Medals are expected to yield a modest £800 at Dix Noonan Webb in London on April 2.

Whiting, described as "one of the finest keepers to stand guard for the Albion" - moved to the Goldstone ground from Chelsea in 1908 and conceded just 28 goals in more than 40 matches in the 1909-10 season when the club won the Southern League championship.

He was again present the following September when Albion beat Aston Villa 1-0 at Stamford Bridge to win the FA Charity Shield.

He is reputed to have once kicked the ball from his own penalty area clean over the bar of his opposite number.

He remained a vital member of the team until the war. He was living in Coleridge Street, Hove, when he enlisted in the Middlesex Regiment in January 1915 and proceeded to France. Rumours started to circulate that he had been shot for desertion.

The Sussex Daily News set the record straight: "A dastardly rumour has been in circulation ... the real fact being that he fell gallantly in action. Fortunately, Mrs Whiting has in her possession official documents which disprove a foul calumny."

Private Whiting has no known grave but is commemorated on the Arras Memorial in France and Hove's war memorial.

At the same sale, the campaign medals of another Albion footballer, Jasper Batey, nicknamed Ginger, who was killed in action in France in 1916, should fetch £600.

Also on offer are eight medals given to Matron Jane Child, born in Brighton in 1864.

The medals, reflecting a long and distinguished career in nursing which encompassed active service in the Greco-Turkish War of 1897-98, the defence of Kimberley during the Boer War and a trek through Kalahari with a "tent hospital" during the Great War, should fetch up to £3,000. They include the Order of St John of Jerusalem.