Biography

Full back Arthur Watson signed for City in the prime of his career in June 1939, a £250 fee being payable for the transfer listed defender. He started the first two games of the 1939/40 season, however the Football League was suspended on declaration of World War Two in Septemnber 1939 and all fixtures already played were expunged. When wartime football resumed Watson remained in the City team and between October 1939 and May 1940 he made 25 non-senior appearances for the Tigers. In August 1940 Watson was called up for military duty and became a military policeman at Catterick Garrison in North Yorkshire, where he ran a Camp football team. He was occasionally named 12th man for the Tigers’ during the 1940/41 season’s wartime competition but made no further starts. Later in the conflict he rose to Corporal and served the Military Police in Austria when the war ended, by then his wife had died and left him with a young daughter to care for.
It wasn’t until his mid 30s in August 1946 that Watson made his full debut for the Tigers and he was a near ever-present for City during most of that first season after the hostilities, scoring both his two goals for the Tigers in an October 1946 5-1 home win against New Brighton. He retired from football at the end of his only season playing for Hull City.
Born in South Hiendley near Barnsley, Watson played for Monckton Colliery, where he worked as a coal miner until his early 20s when the lure of life as a professional footballer proved more attractive than life underground. He signed for Division Three North side Lincoln City in November 1934 and made his senior debut against Doncaster Rovers on the first day of December 1934. He was a regular first team presence for the rest of the 1934/35 season, during an absence late in the season he was replaced in the Imps’ first team by his brother Billy Watson. Arthur started the 1935/36 season in the Lincoln first eleven until a knee injury in September 1935 meant he missed five months of football, his brother Billy again deputised. Arthur returned to the first team at left back in February 1936 and he saw out the season. By the 1936 close season Watson had made 40 senior appearances for Lincoln City.
In June 1936 Arthur, along with his brother Billy, signed for Division Two side Chesterfield. However Arthur was only able to make sporadic first team appearances for the Spireites and mostly played for the Reserves side. He made 10 first team appearances in three seasons before joining the Tigers in June 1939.
Watson, who had recently remarried, retired from playing in May 1947 in order to take the role of landlord at the Half Moon Inn at Market Weighton. By the late 1960s he was landlord of a pub in West Hull and he remained in the area for the rest of his life, dying in Hull in November 1995.
Details
Nationality: England
Date/Place of Birth: 12 July 1913, South Hiendley
Hull City First Game: 31 August 1946, Lincoln City H (Division Three North), 33 years, 50 days old
Hull City Final Game: 26 April 1946, Accrington Stanley H (Division Three North), 33 years, 288 days old
Clubs
Monckton Colliery, Lincoln City (1934-1936), Chesterfield (1936-1939), Hull City (1939-1947)
Hull City Record
Career: 40 apps, 2 goals
Arthur WatsonSeason | LGE App | LGE Gls | FAC App | FAC Gls | FLC App | FLC Gls | EUR App | EUR Gls | OTH App | OTH Gls |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1946/47 | 35 | 2 | 5 | 0 | - | - | - | - | - | - |