By Tony Attwood
I recently published a little piece on Looking for Arsenal Players as we regularly get emails from readers looking for information about relatives who may have played for Arsenal.
So what I thought I would do when I get such requests for information is this. I’ll put them up as an article along with the suggestion as where to look, and if information does come to the fore I will add the player to the two indexes on this site noted above.
The first request we had was for information on Harold James Watson known as Jim, believed to be a goalkeeper playing either in the 1930s or in the wartime leagues between 1939 and 1946. Other information is that he moved to Coventry and played for a works team (perhaps Jaguar or Rolls Royce) and was later a scout for Coventry City.
We haven’t found him but our regular correspondent Nigel has found another player with a very similar name at the same time. Details below, but first a new request…
My name is Brian Borgfeldt. 73 yrs young. I live in New Zealand.
I have in my possession a badge and gold watch which belonged to my Grandfather. The badge has Woolwich Arsenal F C Director in red white and gold.
The watch is Fob type and is engraved inside the back cover with…
Presented to Mr J Radford as a token of esteem by workmen at R S F Royal Arsenal Woolwich. 13th Nov 1913.
Here’s hoping you may be able to give me some information on these items Cheers Brian L Borgfeldt
Now here is the information following the earlier request for a player called Watson…
Have found a Herbert Watson who played for Bristol Rovers from 1936 to ’37 making 19 appearances. No position given but did not score any goals so could well be a goalkeeper.
That would appear to discount another theory I had that he could have played for Arsenal in the London Combination league under 19’s which was formed during the war especially to help youth football of which I have no statistics.
That was from Nigel
If you are looking for a person associated with Arsenal and there is nothing on the internet please do drop me a line at Tony@schools.co.uk with anything you know including obviously the full name, the period when you think the person was associated with the club, what the individual did and any other clubs associated with that person.
If any information does come in I will then set up an article on that particular player which will then appear on the main Arsenal news services, and will also be findable by anyone else searching for the same person, via the normal search engines.
