Willis Walker (24 November 1892 − 3 December 1991) was an English

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 ...

and

County Cricket Inter-county cricket matches are known to have been played since the early 18th century, involving teams that are representative of the historic counties of England and Wales. Since the late 19th century, there have been two county championship ...

er. He played as a

goalkeeper In many team sports which involve scoring goals, the goalkeeper (sometimes termed goaltender, netminder, GK, goalie or keeper) is a designated player charged with directly preventing the opposing team from scoring by blocking or intercepting o ...

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

Leeds City Leeds City Football Club was the leading professional club in Leeds, England, before the First World War. It was dissolved in 1919 due to financial irregularities, after which Leeds United was established as a replacement. History The club was ...

South Shields South Shields () is a coastal town in South Tyneside, Tyne and Wear, England. It is on the south bank of the mouth of the River Tyne. Historically, it was known in Roman times as Arbeia, and as Caer Urfa by Early Middle Ages. According to the 20 ...

Bradford Park Avenue Bradford (Park Avenue) Association Football Club is an association football club based in Bradford, West Yorkshire, England. The team compete in , at the sixth tier of the English football league system. The name derived from their former hom ...

and

Stockport County Stockport County Football Club are a professional association football, football club in Stockport, England, who compete in EFL League Two, the fourth tier of the English football league system. Formed in 1883 as Heaton Norris Rovers, they wer ...

. As a Nottinghamshire County cricketer, he was predominantly a

batsman In cricket, batting is the act or skill of hitting the ball with a bat to score runs and prevent the loss of one's wicket. Any player who is currently batting is, since September 2021, officially referred to as a batter (historically, the ...

, scoring over a thousand first-class runs in a season on ten occasions.

Football career

Walker began his career at

Sheffield United Sheffield United Football Club is a professional football club in Sheffield, South Yorkshire, England, which compete in the . They are nicknamed "the Blades" due to Sheffield's history of cutlery production. The team have played home games at ...

in 1911, though never made it into the first team. In 1912 he was bought by

Midland League The Midland Football League is an English football league that was founded in 2014 by the merger of the former Midland Alliance and Midland Combination. The league has four divisions that sit at levels 9–12 of the football pyramid. History Th ...

side

Doncaster Rovers Doncaster Rovers Football Club is a professional association football club based in Doncaster, South Yorkshire, England. The team compete in League Two, the fourth tier of the English football league system. The club play their home games at ...

where he started off as understudy to

Harry Bromage Henry Bromage (17 May 1879 – June 1954) was an English footballer who played in the Football League for Derby County, Burton United and Leeds City, and in the Midland League for Doncaster Rovers Doncaster Rovers Football Club is a profe ...

, and took over as first choice keeper for the 1913–14 season when he appeared in all 36 league fixtures.

Second Division In sport, the Second Division, also called Division 2 or Division II is usually the second highest division of a league, and will often have promotion and relegation with divisions above and below. Following the rise of Premier League style compet ...

Leeds City signed him in May 1914, but after 14 appearances the onset of

war War is an intense armed conflict between states, governments, societies, or paramilitary groups such as mercenaries, insurgents, and militias. It is generally characterized by extreme violence, destruction, and mortality, using regular o ...

temporarily ended Football League matches. He played for Leeds during the war when he was able to, on 70 occasions altogether. When competition recommenced after the war, Walker was back in the side until Leeds City were suspended from the league. In an

auction An auction is usually a process of buying and selling goods or services by offering them up for bids, taking bids, and then selling the item to the highest bidder or buying the item from the lowest bidder. Some exceptions to this definition ex ...

of former Leeds players in 1919, Walker was bought for £800 by newly elected Second Division team South Shields and went on to play 201 league and

FA Cup The Football Association Challenge Cup, more commonly known as the FA Cup, is an annual knockout football competition in men's domestic English football. First played during the 1871–72 season, it is the oldest national football competi ...

games for them over the nearly six seasons he was there. Latterly he played for Bradford Park Avenue during the 1925–26 season and finished his career at Stockport County the following season.

Cricket career

Walker's

cricket Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of eleven players on a field at the centre of which is a pitch with a wicket at each end, each comprising two bails balanced on three stumps. The batting side scores runs by striki ...

began at

Sheffield United Cricket Club 'Sheffield United Cricket Club'' is the first sports club or association in England to bear the word, ’United’ in its name, common amongst association football clubs in England today. Sheffield United Cricket Club was formed in 1854, by sev ...

whilst he was playing

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball to score a goal. Unqualified, the word ''football'' normally means the form of football that is the most popular where the word is used. Sports commonly c ...

for Sheffield United. He later played county cricket for Nottinghamshire, making his debut in 1913, and going on to score 18,259 runs before ending his time with the county club in 1937. On joining the club he cut two years off his age as well as claiming he was born in the county. Despite a successful career he never played for England.

Personal life

Born in Gosforth,

Northumberland Northumberland () is a county in Northern England, one of two counties in England which border with Scotland. Notable landmarks in the county include Alnwick Castle, Bamburgh Castle, Hadrian's Wall and Hexham Abbey. It is bordered by land on ...

, as a boy he moved south to the Wiseton Estate, near

Retford Retford (), also known as East Retford, is a market town in the Bassetlaw District in Nottinghamshire, England, and one of the oldest English market towns having been granted its first charter in 1105. It lies on the River Idle and the Chesterfie ...

, Nottinghamshire when his father found work there. During the

First World War World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

, he served in the

Royal Navy The Royal Navy (RN) is the United Kingdom's naval warfare force. Although warships were used by English and Scottish kings from the early medieval period, the first major maritime engagements were fought in the Hundred Years' War against F ...

. In 1919 Walker began selling football, cricket and tennis equipment from his home in

Keighley Keighley ( ) is a market town and a civil parish in the City of Bradford Borough of West Yorkshire, England. It is the second largest settlement in the borough, after Bradford. Keighley is north-west of Bradford city centre, north-west of Bi ...

. This business soon moved to a series of shops in the town where his son and then grandsons later took over, until its closure in 2012. Willis Walker died in

East Morton East Morton is a small village which lies north of Bingley and east of Keighley, in the county of West Yorkshire, England. The small hamlet of West Morton lies to the north west. The village has a population of 1,169 according to the 2011 cen ...

near Keighley in 1991 aged 99.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Walker, Willis 1892 births 1991 deaths People from Gosforth Cricketers from Tyne and Wear Footballers from Tyne and Wear English footballers Association football goalkeepers Sheffield United F.C. players Doncaster Rovers F.C. players Leeds City F.C. players South Shields F.C. (1889) players Bradford (Park Avenue) A.F.C. players Stockport County F.C. players English Football League players Midland Football League players English cricketers Nottinghamshire cricketers North v South cricketers People from Wiseton Footballers from Nottinghamshire Cricketers from Nottinghamshire Cricketers from Keighley English cricketers of 1890 to 1918 English cricketers of 1919 to 1945 Royal Navy personnel of World War I