David Keith Woodcock (born 13 October 1966) is an English former

footballer A football player or footballer is a sportsperson who plays one of the different types of football. The main types of football are association football, American football, Canadian football, Australian rules football, Gaelic football, rugby ...

who made 27 appearances in the Football League playing as a

midfielder A midfielder is an outfield position in association football. Midfielders may play an exclusively defensive role, breaking up attacks, and are in that case known as defensive midfielders. As central midfielders often go across boundarie ...

for Darlington in the mid-1980s.

Life and career

Woodcock was born in

Shardlow Shardlow is a village in Derbyshire, England about southeast of Derby and southwest of Nottingham. Part of the civil parish of Shardlow and Great Wilne, and the district of South Derbyshire, it is also very close to the border with Leice ...

, Derbyshire. He began his football career as an apprentice with Sunderland, but left the club without having played for the first-team, and signed for Darlington, newly promoted to the

Football League Third Division The Football League Third Division was the third tier of the English football league system in 1920–21 and again from 1958 until 1992. When the FA Premier League was formed, the division become the fourth tier level. In 2004, following th ...

, in August 1985. Over the next two seasons, he played 27 league matches, around half of which as a substitute, and scored twice. At the end of his second season, Darlington were relegated back to the Fourth Division, and Woodcock left. He played non-league football for clubs including

Newcastle Blue Star Newcastle Blue Star F.C. is a football club based in Newcastle upon Tyne, England. It was established in 1930 and joined the Wearside League in 1973. In 1978, it won the FA Vase. Having won promotion to the Northern Premier League Premier Divi ...

North Shields North Shields () is a town in the Borough of North Tyneside in Tyne and Wear, England. It is north-east of Newcastle upon Tyne and borders nearby Wallsend and Tynemouth. Since 1974, it has been in the North Tyneside borough of Tyne and Wea ...

, Bridlington Town, with whom he won the FA Vase and the

Northern Premier League First Division The Northern Premier League is an English football league that was founded in 1968. It has four divisions: the Premier Division (which stands at level 7 of the English football league system), Division One East, Division One West and Division ...

title in 1993, and Bishop Auckland. His playing career was ended by a badly broken leg in the mid-1990s, and he resumed working in football in 1998 as manager of Darlington Railway Athletic, where he stayed for ten of the next eleven years.

References

1966 births Living people People from Shardlow Footballers from Derbyshire English footballers Men's association football midfielders Sunderland A.F.C. players Darlington F.C. players Newcastle Blue Star F.C. players North Shields F.C. players Bridlington Town A.F.C. players Bishop Auckland F.C. players English Football League players Northern Premier League players English football managers Darlington Railway Athletic F.C. managers Northern Football League managers {{England-footy-midfielder-1960s-stub