John Russell Watson played first-class

First-class cricket

First-class cricket is a class of cricket that consists of matches of three or more days' scheduled duration, that are between two sides of eleven players and are officially adjudged first-class by virtue of the standard of the competing teams...

 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...

 for Somerset

Somerset County Cricket Club

Somerset County Cricket Club is one of the 18 major county clubs which make up the English and Welsh domestic cricket structure, representing the historic county of Somerset...

 between 1933 and 1936. He was born at Caundle Purse, Sherborne

Sherborne

Sherborne is a market town in northwest Dorset, England. It is sited on the River Yeo, on the edge of the Blackmore Vale, east of Yeovil. The A30 road, which connects London to Penzance, runs through the town. The population of the town is 9,350 . 27.1% of the population is aged 65 or...

, Dorset

Dorset

Dorset , is a county in South West England on the English Channel coast. The county town is Dorchester which is situated in the south. The Hampshire towns of Bournemouth and Christchurch joined the county with the reorganisation of local government in 1974...

 and died at Yeovil

Yeovil

Yeovil is a town and civil parish in south Somerset, England. The parish had a population of 27,949 at the 2001 census, although the wider urban area had a population of 42,140...

, Somerset

Somerset

The ceremonial and non-metropolitan county of Somerset in South West England borders Bristol and Gloucestershire to the north, Wiltshire to the east, Dorset to the south-east, and Devon to the south-west. It is partly bounded to the north and west by the Bristol Channel and the estuary of the...

.

Watson was a right-handed batsman used mainly by Somerset in the lower order. In his first match, against Derbyshire

Derbyshire County Cricket Club

Derbyshire County Cricket Club is one of the 18 major county clubs which make up the England and Wales domestic cricket structure, representing the historic county of Derbyshire...

 at Ilkeston in May 1933, he came in for his second innings with the Somerset score on 63 for six wickets, Somerset and Derbyshire having been dismissed for 87 and 81 all out respectively in their first innings. Watson hit 56 and shared an eighth wicket partnership of 92 with Michael Bennett

Michael Bennett (cricketer)

Geoffrey Michael Bennett played first-class cricket for Somerset between 1928 and 1939.Bennett was born at Bruton, Somerset...

, though Derbyshire then won the match easily.

Watson played seven further games for Somerset that season, but his highest score in these matches was only 33, and a few matches in each of the 1934, 1935 and 1936 seasons were no more successful.

After the Second World War, he played in a few Minor Counties matches for Dorset

Dorset County Cricket Club

Dorset County Cricket Club is one of the county clubs which make up the Minor Counties in the English domestic cricket structure, representing the historic county of Dorset and playing in the Minor Counties Championship and the MCCA Knockout Trophy...

.