Richard "Dickie" Watmough (1912 – 7 September 1962) was an English

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

 professional footballer and cricket

Cricket

Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of 11 players on an oval-shaped field, at the centre of which is a rectangular 22-yard long pitch. One team bats, trying to score as many runs as possible while the other team bowls and fields, trying to dismiss the batsmen and thus limit the...

er. He played as a midfielder

Midfielder

A midfielder is an association football position. Some midfielders play a more defensive role, while others blur the boundaries between midfielders and forwards. The number of midfielders a team uses during a match may vary, depending on the team's formation and each individual player's role...

 in the former sport.

Football

Born in Idle

Idle, West Yorkshire

The village of Idle and its outskirts make up a mainly residential suburban area in the city of Bradford, West Yorkshire, in England. The area is loosely bordered by the areas of Eccleshill, Wrose, Thackley and Greengates, in the north east of the city....

, Bradford

Bradford

Bradford lies at the heart of the City of Bradford, a metropolitan borough of West Yorkshire, in Northern England. It is situated in the foothills of the Pennines, west of Leeds, and northwest of Wakefield. Bradford became a municipal borough in 1847, and received its charter as a city in 1897...

, West Yorkshire

West Yorkshire

West Yorkshire is a metropolitan county within the Yorkshire and the Humber region of England with a population of 2.2 million. West Yorkshire came into existence as a metropolitan county in 1974 after the passage of the Local Government Act 1972....

, Watmough signed for his hometown club in the early 1930s. He went on to make almost one hundred league appearances for the Bantams, scoring 24 goals.

In 1934, he signed for Blackpool

Blackpool F.C.

Blackpool Football Club are an English football club founded in 1887 from the Lancashire seaside town of Blackpool. They are competing in the 2011–12 season of the The Championship, the second tier of professional football in England, having been relegated from the Premier League at the end of the...

. He made his debut for the club on October 13, 1934, ten games into the 1934–35

Blackpool F.C. season 1934-35

The 1934-35 season was Blackpool F.C.s 34th season in the Football League. They competed in the 22-team Division Two, then the second tier of English football, finishing fourth....

 season, and scored the winning goal in Blackpool's 2–1 victory over Norwich City

Norwich City F.C.

Norwich City Football Club is an English professional football club based in Norwich, Norfolk. As of the 2011–12 season, Norwich City are again playing in the Premier League after a six-year absence, having finished as runner up in the Championship in 2010–11 and winning automatic promotion.The...

 at Bloomfield Road

Bloomfield Road

Bloomfield Road is an all-seater football stadium in the English town of Blackpool, Lancashire. It has been the permanent home of Blackpool F.C. since 1901 and is named after the road on which the stadium's main entrance used to stand. The stadium has been in a process of redevelopment since 2000...

. He went on to make a further 31 league appearances and score another eight goals.

The following season, 1935–36

Blackpool F.C. season 1935-36

The 1935-36 season was Blackpool F.C.s 35th season in the Football League. They competed in the 22-team Division Two, then the second tier of English football, finishing tenth....

, under new manager Joe Smith, he made 23 league appearances and scored eight goals. He also scored twice in Blackpool's short FA Cup

FA Cup

The Football Association Challenge Cup, commonly known as the FA Cup, is a knockout cup competition in English football and is the oldest association football competition in the world. The "FA Cup" is run by and named after The Football Association and usually refers to the English men's...

 campaign, netting two goals in a 3–1 victory over Margate

Margate F.C.

Margate Football Club is an English football team based in the seaside resort of Margate, Kent, currently playing in the Isthmian League Premier Division. The club was known for a number of years during the 1980s as Thanet United....

 in the third round (the round in which they entered the competition).

In 1936–37

Blackpool F.C. season 1936-37

The 1936-37 season was Blackpool F.C.s 36th season in the Football League. They competed in the 22-team Division Two, then the second tier of English football, finishing second...

, Watmough scored thirteen goals in his 31 league appearances, helping the club to a runners-up finishing position and promotion to Division One

Football League First Division

The First Division was a division of The Football League between 1888 and 2004 and the highest division in English football until the creation of the Premier League in 1992. The secondary tier in English football has since become known as the Championship....

.

In their first season back in the top flight, 1937–38

Blackpool F.C. season 1937-38

The 1937-38 season was Blackpool F.C.s 37th season in the Football League. They competed in the 22-team Division One, then the top tier of English football, finishing twelfth....

, Watmough's place came under pressure from Alex Munro

Alex Munro

Alexander Dewar "Alex" Munro was a Scottish professional football player.-Club career:...

, who was signed from Hearts

Heart of Midlothian F.C.

Heart of Midlothian Football Club are a Scottish professional football club based in Gorgie, in the west of Edinburgh. They currently play in the Scottish Premier League and are one of the two principal clubs in the city, the other being Hibernian...

. Watmough made fourteen league appearances and scored two goals before he was sold to arch-rivals Preston North End

Preston North End F.C.

Preston North End Football Club is an English professional football club located in the Deepdale area of the city of Preston, Lancashire, currently playing in the third tier of English league football, League One...

 in early December 1937, in an exchange deal that brought Frank O'Donnell

Frank O'Donnell

Francis Joseph "Frank" O'Donnell was a Scottish professional footballer. He was the older brother of fellow footballer Hugh O'Donnell. The siblings stayed together for the first sixteen years of their careers, both playing concurrently for Celtic, Preston North End and Blackpool...

 to Blackpool and also took Jim McIntosh to Deepdale

Deepdale

Deepdale is a stadium in the Deepdale area of Preston, England, the home of Preston North End F.C. and, up to 2010, England's National Football Museum. Preston North End are one of the founder members of the Football League.- History :...

. Mowbray's final game for Blackpool was in a single-goal defeat at home to Liverpool

Liverpool F.C.

Liverpool Football Club is an English Premier League football club based in Liverpool, Merseyside. Liverpool has won eighteen League titles, second most in English football, seven FA Cups and a record seven League Cups...

 on November 27.

At Preston, he won the FA Cup

FA Cup

The Football Association Challenge Cup, commonly known as the FA Cup, is a knockout cup competition in English football and is the oldest association football competition in the world. The "FA Cup" is run by and named after The Football Association and usually refers to the English men's...

 in 1938, at the end of his only season with the club.

Cricket

Watmough played for Yorkshire County Cricket Club

Yorkshire County Cricket Club

Yorkshire County Cricket Club represents the historic county of Yorkshire as one of the 18 major county clubs which make up the English and Welsh domestic cricket structure....

's Second XI in the 1932 Minor Counties Cricket Championship

Minor Counties Cricket Championship

The Minor Counties Cricket Championship is a season-long competition in England that is contested by those county cricket clubs that do not have first-class status...

 and was once twelfth man for the First XI.

Post-retirement

After retiring, Watmough became a publican

Public house

A public house, informally known as a pub, is a drinking establishment fundamental to the culture of Britain, Ireland, Australia and New Zealand. There are approximately 53,500 public houses in the United Kingdom. This number has been declining every year, so that nearly half of the smaller...

 in Eccleshall

Eccleshall

Eccleshall is a town in Staffordshire, England. It is located seven miles north west of Stafford, and six miles west of Stone. Eccleshall is twinned with Sancerre in France.-History:...

 and scouted for Bradford Park Avenue.

He died on September 7, 1962.

Blackpool

• Promotion to Division One
  Football League First Division
  The First Division was a division of The Football League between 1888 and 2004 and the highest division in English football until the creation of the Premier League in 1992. The secondary tier in English football has since become known as the Championship....
  
  : 1936–37
  Blackpool F.C. season 1936-37
  The 1936-37 season was Blackpool F.C.s 36th season in the Football League. They competed in the 22-team Division Two, then the second tier of English football, finishing second...