Walters Charlie Image 2 Minor Counties 1921

Description

Sandford-on-Thames, Oxfordshire born centre half Charlie Walters started his football career with Oxford City after the First World War in 1919 but soon joined Second Division Tottenham Hotspur initially as an amateur in December the same year, making his Football League debut at Stoke in April 1920 (the same month as he turned professional) as Tottenham went on to win the Second Division Championship. The following season he became a first team regular and played 6 matches in the Cup run as Tottenham won the 1921 FA Cup with Spurs beating Wolverhampton Wanderers 1-0 in the Final at Stamford Bridge thanks to a goal from Jimmy Dimmock.

He also featured in their FA Charity Shield win over Burnley a month later and their 2-1 FA Cup semi final defeat to Preston North End a year later at Hillsborough when defending the trophy. Such was his form that he was also selected for the England squad to play Belgium in March 1923, but had to withdraw due to injury and was not chosen again.

However after two further seasons as a first team regular, he found it harder to get into the Spurs first team from 1923-24 onwards, becoming a fringe player from 1924-25 after when he played only 3 more first team matches, and after 118 Spurs appearances Walters joined Fulham in October 1926 where featured in a further 19 matches before ending his career at Midland League Mansfield Town whom he joined in August 1928, making just 4 appearances for The Stags before finishing with professional football in 1929.

He was also a decent amateur cricketer. Walters made his debut for Oxfordshire in the 1922 Minor Counties Championship against Cambridgeshire. He played Minor counties cricket for Oxfordshire from 1922 to 1952, which is the joint second longest playing time for the county, level with Keith Arnold and exceeded only by Stewart Lee. He played a total of 129 matches for the county. He played first class for a combined Minor Counties cricket team on four occasions: in 1930 against Wales and Lancashire, in 1931 against the touring New Zealanders, and in 1934 against Oxford University. In his four first class matches, he scored 47 runs at a batting average of 11.75, with a high score of 25. With the ball he took 3 wickets at a bowling average of 49.33, with best figures of 2 for 72.