Quick Facts
Biography
David Watson (born 10 November 1973) is an English former professional footballer who played as a goalkeeper for Barnsley and the England under-21 team. He currently works as a goalkeeping coach for Southampton.
Playing career
Watson was born in Barnsley, South 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. He helped the club to runners-up spot in Division One in the 1996–97 season to gain promotion to the Premier League and was first choice goalkeeper in their one season in the top flight. 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.
While at Barnsley Watson represented England in the 1993 FIFA World Youth Championship, where they finished in third place and won the FIFA fair play award. He also won five caps for England at under-21 level.
Coaching career
He went on to work as goalkeeping coach with Northampton Town, Oldham Athletic, Huddersfield Town, Northampton Town again, the England under-19 team and Nottingham Forest before replacing Nigel Spink as goalkeeping coach of Birmingham City in January 2008. 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, experience that encouraged new manager Roy Hodgson to invite him to work alongside Ray Clemence with the England team at Euro 2012.
On 6 July 2012, it was confirmed that Watson had joined Norwich City to become their goalkeeping coach, continuing his relationship with Chris Hughton whom he previously worked under at Birmingham City. On 1 July 2014, it was announced that he would join Southampton as goalkeeping coach as part of the coaching staff for new manager Ronald Koeman.
Honours
- Division One (level 2) runners-up 1996–97.
- FIFA World Youth Championship third place 1993