David Danskin

David Danskin (born January 9, 1863 in Burntisland , Fife , Scotland , † August 4, 1948 in Warwick , Warwickshire , England ) was a Scottish mechanical engineer and football player . He was one of the founding fathers of Dial Square Football Club, now known as Arsenal FC .

Danskin grew up in Kirkcaldy , Scotland , before moving to London in the mid-1880s to find work. He was hired in the Dial Square workshop of the armaments manufacturer Royal Arsenal in Woolwich , where he met several football enthusiasts, including Jack Humble and two former Nottingham Forest players, Fred Beardsley and Morris Bates . Danskin is widely recognized - along with Humble - as the driving force behind the formation of the soccer team from the workforce as Dial Square Football Club. He then acted as an organizer, bought the first ball for the club and led the team in the first game against the Eastern Wanderers on December 11, 1886, which Dial Square won 6-0, as team captain .

He continued to work for Royal Arsenal , as the club later called itself, for the next three years on a regular basis. Then he acted less and less until he finally stopped playing football in 1893. When the club became a professional club, joined the Football League and took commercial ventures, Danskin cut ties with the club completely.

Danskin later opened his own bicycle manufacturing company in Plumstead before moving to Coventry in 1907 to work for Standard Motors . In his later life he had reinforced with health problems to contend that were probably due to the injuries sustained during his football time, and went early to the board . Nevertheless, he was still one of the few founding members who saw his former club's first phase of dominance in the 1930s. He was reportedly enjoying the 1936 FA Cup victory in his sick bed , which he watched on the radio. After a long illness, Danskin died in 1948 at the age of 85 in a Warwick hospice .

Web links

• Article on David Danskin (Burntisland Online, English)