James Daws (27 May 1898 – June 1985) was an English professional

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 le ...

who played as a

right half 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 ...

. He played 75 games in

the Football League The English Football League (EFL) is a league of professional football clubs from England and Wales. Founded in 1888 as the Football League, the league is the oldest such competition in the world. It was the top-level football league in Engla ...

for

Birmingham Birmingham ( ) is a city and metropolitan borough in the metropolitan county of West Midlands in England. It is the second-largest city in the United Kingdom with a population of 1.145 million in the city proper, 2.92 million in the West ...

and Bristol Rovers.

Life and career

Born in

Mansfield Woodhouse Mansfield Woodhouse is a settlement about north of Mansfield in Nottinghamshire, England, along the main A60 road in a wide, low valley between the Rivers Maun and Meden.OS Explorer Map 270: Sherwood Forest: (1:25 000): Founded before the Rom ...

Nottinghamshire Nottinghamshire (; abbreviated Notts.) is a landlocked county in the East Midlands region of England, bordering South Yorkshire to the north-west, Lincolnshire to the east, Leicestershire to the south, and Derbyshire to the west. The traditi ...

, Daws began his football career with brief spells as an

amateur An amateur () is generally considered a person who pursues an avocation independent from their source of income. Amateurs and their pursuits are also described as popular, informal, autodidacticism, self-taught, user-generated, do it yourself, DI ...

with Notts County and

Mansfield Town Mansfield Town Football Club is a professional association football, football club based in the town of Mansfield, Nottinghamshire, England. The team competes in , the fourth tier of the English football league system. Nicknamed 'The Stags', they ...

, before joining

in January 1920. In four years with the club he played nearly 50 games, but failed to establish himself as a first-team regular. He moved on to Bristol Rovers, initially as an amateur, then after a couple of months the club paid £250 for his services as a professional player. After one season in Bristol, he returned home for a year, playing for Mansfield Woodhouse F.C., before finishing his career with two seasons as player-trainer of Poole Town. He contributed to the club winning the Western League Division Two in the 1925–26 season, reaching the third round proper of the

1926–27 FA Cup The 1926–27 FA Cup was the 52nd staging of the world's oldest football cup competition, the Football Association Challenge Cup, commonly known as the FA Cup. Welsh club Cardiff City won the competition for the first time, beating Arsenal 1–0 ...

, in which they lost 3–1 to First Division club Everton, and winning the

Dorset Senior Cup The Dorset Senior Cup is a knockout cup competition involving association football teams from the county of Dorset, England, affiliated with the Dorset County Football Association. The current holders of the Dorset Senior Cup are Poole Town who ...

in both seasons. He died in

at the age of 87.

References

1898 births 1985 deaths People from Mansfield Woodhouse Footballers from Nottinghamshire English men's footballers Men's association football wing halves Notts County F.C. players Mansfield Town F.C. players Birmingham City F.C. players Bristol Rovers F.C. players Poole Town F.C. players English Football League players {{England-footy-midfielder-1890s-stub