David Watson (footballer, born 1973)

David Neil Watson (born 10 November 1973) is an English football coach and former player, who played as a goalkeeper for Barnsley and the England under-21 team. After injury forced his early retirement from playing, he took up coaching, working as goalkeeping coach for several clubs as well as spending four years in the same role with the England team. In 2014, he joined Southampton, where he has been a first team assistant coach since 2019.

For other people named David Watson, see David Watson (disambiguation).

David Watson
Watson with Birmingham City in 2011
Personal information
Full name David Neil Watson[1]
Date of birth (1973-11-10) 10 November 1973[1]
Place of birth Barnsley, England
Height 6 ft 0 in (1.83 m)[2]
Position(s) Goalkeeper
Club information
Current team
 Southampton (first team assistant coach)
Youth career
Barnsley
Senior career*
Years Team Apps (Gls)
1992–2001 Barnsley 178 (0)
National team
1993 England U20 6 (0)
1993–1995 England U21 5 (0)
* Senior club appearances and goals counted for the domestic league only

Playing career

Watson was born in Barnsley,[1] West Riding of Yorkshire. He began his football career in the youth system of his home-town club and went on to make more than 200 appearances for their first team in all competitions, including 178 in league matches.[3] He helped the team finish as runners-up spot in the 1996–97 First Division to gain promotion to the Premier League,[4] and was first-choice goalkeeper in their one season in the top flight.[3] He suffered a knee injury in a game against Norwich City in September 1998; he spent more than two years in an abortive attempt to regain fitness but played no more first-team football and retired in 2001 at the age of 28.[5]

While a Barnsley player, Watson represented England at the 1993 FIFA World Youth Championship. They finished in third place and won the FIFA Fair Play award.[6] He also won five caps for England at under-21 level.[7]

Coaching career

He went on to work as goalkeeping coach with Northampton Town, Oldham Athletic,[5] Huddersfield Town,[8] Northampton Town again, the England under-19 team,[9] and Nottingham Forest,[10] before replacing Nigel Spink as goalkeeping coach of Birmingham City in January 2008.[11]

While in this position, Watson built a reputation as an excellent coach, praised for enhancing the careers of England goalkeepers Joe Hart, Ben Foster and Jack Butland,[12] experience that encouraged new manager Roy Hodgson to invite him to work alongside Ray Clemence with the England team at Euro 2012.[13] Watson remained as England's goalkeeping coach for four years, and was prepared to stay on after Hodgson and the rest of his staff left following the poor performance at Euro 2016, but Hodgson's successor Sam Allardyce replaced him with Martyn Margetson.[14]

On 6 July 2012, Watson joined Norwich City as goalkeeping coach, continuing his relationship with Chris Hughton whom he previously worked under at Birmingham City.[15] Two years later, he joined Southampton as senior goalkeeping coach as part of new manager Ronald Koeman's staff.[16] He was named head of goalkeeping in 2016,[17] and in 2019 was appointed as a first-team assistant coach under Ralph Hasenhüttl.[18]

Honours

Barnsley

England Under-20

References
  1. "David Watson". Barry Hugman's Footballers. Retrieved 6 August 2020.
  2. Rollin, Glenda; Rollin, Jack, eds. (2000). Playfair Football Annual 2000–2001. London: Headline. p. 24. ISBN 978-0-7472-6620-4.
  3. "Games played by David Watson in 1997/1998". Soccerbase. Centurycomm. Retrieved 6 August 2020.
  4. "Bygones: How Barnsley's winning mix produced carnival atmosphere at Oakwell". Yorkshire Post. 24 April 2017. Retrieved 6 August 2020.
  5. "Watson joins Oldham". BBC Sport. 9 January 2002. Retrieved 6 August 2020.
  6. "England's Matches: the under 20s". England Football Online. Chris Goodwin & Glen Isherwood. 20 November 2019. Retrieved 6 August 2020.
    "Tournaments: FIFA World Youth Championship Australia 1993". FIFA. Archived from the original on 25 August 2012. Retrieved 11 May 2012.
  7. Courtney, Barrie (23 August 2018). "England – U-21 International Results 1986–1995 – Details". Rec.Sport.Soccer Statistics Foundation (RSSSF). Retrieved 6 August 2020.
  8. "Wadsworth appoints Wilkes". BBC Sport. 9 July 2002. Retrieved 6 August 2020.
  9. "Cobblers coach given England role". BBC Sport. 8 November 2005. Retrieved 6 August 2020.
  10. "Forest name new goalkeeping coach". BBC Sport. 12 June 2006. Retrieved 6 August 2020.
  11. "Watson is Blues' new keeper coach". BBC Sport. 10 January 2008. Retrieved 6 August 2020.
  12. Winter, Henry (10 September 2010). "England's goalkeepers in safe hands with Birmingham coach Dave Watson". Daily Telegraph. Retrieved 6 August 2020.
  13. "Dave Watson to link up with England". Soccernet. ESPN. 10 May 2012. Retrieved 6 August 2020.
  14. Law, Matt (9 August 2016). "Sam Allardyce poaches Welsh goalkeeping coach to replace Dave Watson in England backroom reshuffle". Daily Telegraph. Retrieved 6 August 2020.
  15. Tattum, Colin (6 July 2012). "Dave Watson leaves Birmingham City to join Chris Hughton at Norwich". Birmingham Mail. Retrieved 6 August 2020.
  16. "Premier League: Sammy Lee and Dave Watson join Ronald Koeman's coaching staff at Southampton". Sky Sports. 1 July 2014. Retrieved 6 August 2020.
  17. "Dave Watson signs a new contract at Southampton and is given the role of Head of Goalkeeping". Daily Echo. Southampton. 25 July 2016. Retrieved 6 August 2020.
  18. "Dave Watson promoted to Southampton first team assistant coach". FourFourTwo. 1 July 2019. Retrieved 6 August 2020.

David Watson at Soccerbase

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