James William Welford (27 March 1869 – 17 January 1945) was an English
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 st ...
er and
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 ...
. He won both 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 ...
(three times) 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 competit ...
with
Aston Villa
Aston Villa Football Club is a professional football club based in Aston, Birmingham, England. The club competes in the , the top tier of the English football league system. Founded in 1874, they have played at their home ground, Villa P ...
, and the
Scottish Football League
The Scottish Football League (SFL) was a league featuring professional and semi-professional football clubs mostly from Scotland.One club, Berwick Rangers, is based in the town of Berwick-upon-Tweed, which is located approximately 4 km so ...
and
Scottish Cup
The Scottish Football Association Challenge Cup,Celtic, all in a seven-year period in the 1890s.
In cricket, Welford was a right-handed
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, th ...
who bowled right-arm
fast
Fast or FAST may refer to:
* Fast (noun), high speed or velocity
* Fast (noun, verb), to practice fasting, abstaining from food and/or water for a certain period of time
Acronyms and coded Computing and software
* ''Faceted Application of Subje ...
.
Football
Welford was born in
Barnard Castle
Barnard Castle (, ) is a market town on the north bank of the River Tees, in County Durham, Northern England. The town is named after and built around a medieval castle ruin. The town's Bowes Museum's has an 18th-century Silver Swan automa ...
, County Durham; his playing position was as a full-back. He had played locally for
Stockton Stockton may refer to:
Places Australia
* Stockton, New South Wales
* Stockton, Queensland, a locality in the Cassowary Coast Region
New Zealand
*Stockton, New Zealand
United Kingdom
*Stockton, Cheshire
*Stockton, Norfolk
*Stockton, Chirbu ...
Aston Villa
Aston Villa Football Club is a professional football club based in Aston, Birmingham, England. The club competes in the , the top tier of the English football league system. Founded in 1874, they have played at their home ground, Villa P ...
in 1893. He played there until 1897, making a total of 83 appearances in both League and Cup, scoring one goal. While at Villa (where his teammates included Bob Chatt, also from Barnard Castle), he won the
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 competit ...
in
1895
Events
January–March
* January 5 – Dreyfus affair: French officer Alfred Dreyfus is stripped of his army rank, and sentenced to life imprisonment on Devil's Island.
* January 12 – The National Trust for Places of Histor ...
and claimed three
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 ...
titles in 1893–94, 1895–96 and 1896–97, although by the latter season he was no longer a regular, possibly due to injury – coincidentally the man who took his place in the side, Albert Evans, was another player from Barnard Castle, situated about from
Birmingham
Birmingham ( ) is a city and metropolitan borough in the metropolitan county of West Midlands in England. It is the second-largest city in the United Kingdom with a population of 1.145 million in the city proper, 2.92 million in the We ...
; his absence meant he missed out on the rare opportunity to become a '
double
A double is a look-alike or doppelgänger; one person or being that resembles another.
Double, The Double or Dubble may also refer to:
Film and television
* Double (filmmaking), someone who substitutes for the credited actor of a character
* Th ...
' winner as he took no part in the
1897 FA Cup Final
Events
January–March
* January 2 – The International Alpha Omicron Pi sorority is founded, in New York City.
* January 4 – A British force is ambushed by Chief Ologbosere, son-in-law of the ruler. This leads to a punit ...
victory.
From Aston Villa Welford moved to Celtic in Scotland, being enticed north along with teammates John Campbell and Jack Reynolds. He played for Celtic for three seasons and won the
Scottish Football League
The Scottish Football League (SFL) was a league featuring professional and semi-professional football clubs mostly from Scotland.One club, Berwick Rangers, is based in the town of Berwick-upon-Tweed, which is located approximately 4 km so ...
Scottish Cup
The Scottish Football Association Challenge Cup,1899
Events January 1899
* January 1
** Spanish rule ends in Cuba, concluding 400 years of the Spanish Empire in the Americas.
** Queens and Staten Island become administratively part of New York City.
* January 2 –
**Bolivia sets up a ...
, followed swiftly by the
Glasgow Merchants Charity Cup
The Glasgow Merchants' Charity Cup was a knockout football tournament open to teams from in and around Glasgow and later on in the tournament's history, teams from outwith Glasgow. Invitations were made and sent out by the Glasgow Charity Cup ...
, both knockout trophies won by way of 2–0 victories over local rivals Rangers. He later had spells in the Irish League with Belfast Celtic and
Distillery
Distillation, or classical distillation, is the process of separating the components or substances from a liquid mixture by using selective boiling and condensation, usually inside an apparatus known as a still. Dry distillation is the heat ...
, and with
Hamilton Academical
Hamilton Academical Football Club, often known as Hamilton Accies, or The Accies, is a Scottish football club from Hamilton, South Lanarkshire who currently compete in the Scottish Championship, having been relegated from the 2020–21 Scottis ...
Minor Counties Championship
The NCCA 3 Day Championship (previously the Minor Counties Cricket Championship) is a season-long competition in England and Wales that is contested by the members of the National Counties Cricket Association (NCCA), the so-called national cou ...
against
Cheshire
Cheshire ( ) is a ceremonial and historic county in North West England, bordered by Wales to the west, Merseyside and Greater Manchester to the north, Derbyshire to the east, and Staffordshire and Shropshire to the south. Cheshire's coun ...
. He made five further appearances in that season for the county. He joined
Warwickshire
Warwickshire (; abbreviated Warks) is a county in the West Midlands region of England. The county town is Warwick, and the largest town is Nuneaton. The county is famous for being the birthplace of William Shakespeare at Stratford-upon-Avon an ...
County Championship
The County Championship (referred to as the LV= Insurance County Championship for sponsorship reasons) is the domestic first-class cricket competition in England and Wales and is organised by the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB). It b ...
against Surrey. He made 12 further first-class appearances in 1896, the last of which came against
Hampshire
Hampshire (, ; abbreviated to Hants) is a ceremonial county, ceremonial and non-metropolitan county, non-metropolitan counties of England, county in western South East England on the coast of the English Channel. Home to two major English citi ...
. In this thirteen first-class appearances for Warwickshire, he scored 459 runs at an
average
In ordinary language, an average is a single number taken as representative of a list of numbers, usually the sum of the numbers divided by how many numbers are in the list (the arithmetic mean). For example, the average of the numbers 2, 3, 4, 7, ...
of 21.85, with a high score of 118. This score, which was his only first-class
century
A century is a period of 100 years. Centuries are numbered ordinally in English and many other languages. The word ''century'' comes from the Latin ''centum'', meaning ''one hundred''. ''Century'' is sometimes abbreviated as c.
A centennial ...
, came against Leicestershire. With the ball, he took 2 wickets at a
bowling average
In cricket, a player's bowling average is the number of runs they have conceded per wicket taken. The lower the bowling average is, the better the bowler is performing. It is one of a number of statistics used to compare bowlers, commonly use ...
of 90.00, with best figures of 1/13.
He died in Paisley, Scotland on 17 January 1945.
ESPNcricinfo
ESPN cricinfo (formerly known as Cricinfo or CricInfo) is a sports news website exclusively for the game of cricket. The site features news, articles, live coverage of cricket matches (including liveblogs and scorecards), and ''StatsGuru'', a ...