Donald Shearer
Personal information
Full name Edgar Donald Reid Shearer
Date of birth (1909-06-06)6 June 1909
Place of birth Hendon, England
Date of death 9 July 1999(1999-07-09) (aged 90)
Place of death Sudbury, England
Senior career*
Years Team Apps (Gls)
Casuals
Corinthian
Derry City
International career
England amateur
1936 Great Britain 1 (1)
Cricket information
BattingRight-handed
Career statistics
Competition First-class
Matches 14
Runs scored 628
Batting average 24.15
100s/50s 0/4
Top score 72
Catches/stumpings 12/–
*Club domestic league appearances and goals

Edgar Donald Reid Shearer CBE (6 June 1909 – 9 July 1999) was an amateur sportsman who played both association football and cricket at international levels.[1][2] Shearer became an OBE after World War II and a CBE in the 1970s.[3]

Early life

Shearer was born in England in 1909, but spent most of his life in Ireland.[2] After being an excellent sportsperson in his youth, he left school to work in a textile factory.[2] He initially played rugby for the City of Derry Rugby Football Club before he took up football, after he was noticed for his kicking ability.[2]

Football career

In 1929, Shearer joined Casuals before joining Corinthian a year later.[2][4] In the early 1930s, he also played for Derry City.[2] He played in the 1935–36 final of the FA Amateur Cup for Casuals, scoring one goal in the replay of the final, with Casuals winning their only cup.[2] During his playing career for Corinthians and Casuals, he played in 50 matches, scoring 38 goals.[2] In the 1936–37 season for Derry, Shearer scored 78 goals including three hat-tricks.[2]

Shearer earned seven amateur international caps for England,[5] and represented Great Britain at the 1936 Summer Olympics.[6][7] He played in Great Britain's match against Poland, scoring a goal.[8]

He was made several offers to turn professional, including from Arsenal, but he declined,[3] before he retired from football in 1939.[2]

Cricket career

In the 1929 cricket season in Ireland, Shearer scored 2,000 runs.[2] Shearer played 13 first-class matches for Ireland between 1933 and 1952.[9] In 1932, he became the first cricketer to score a century in the final of the North West Senior Cup, when he made 110 runs.[3] A year later, he made his highest score in the competition, with 233 runs in a semi-final match.[3]

During Australia's tour of England and Ireland in 1938,[10] Shearer played in Ireland's match at College Park, Dublin in September of that year.[3] In the second innings of the match, he scored 56 runs, with no other member of the Ireland team reaching double figures.[11]

In 1948, Shearer founded the Leprechauns Cricket Club, and is the only cricketer to be an Honorary Life Member of the club.[5] In 1951, he played for the Gentlemen of Ireland in a non first-class match where he became the first Irish batter to score a century at Lord's.[12]

Later life

During World War II, Shearer served in North Africa and was the commander of the garrison in Tobruk, Libya.[2] In the 1946 New Year Honours, he was awarded with an OBE.[13] He later became the managing director of a textile company in Belfast, before becoming a director of Sir Alfred McAlpine & Son.[2] He was also the chair of the Northern Ireland Sports Council and the president of the Irish and Northern Cricket Unions.[2] In 1974, he was appointed CBE.[14]

He died in July 1999,[15] at the age of 90, and his obituary was published in Wisden.[16]

References

  1. ↑ Butler, William (30 October 2016). The Irish amateur military tradition in the British Army, 1854–1992. Manchester University Press. ISBN 9781526108470 – via Google Books.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 "Donald Shearer". Olympedia. Retrieved 22 September 2021.
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 "Edgar Donald Reid Shearer". Cricket Europe. Retrieved 17 April 2022.
  4. ↑ "Corinthian Casuals F.C. - Player profiles". Archived from the original on 26 October 2018. Retrieved 2 September 2013.
  5. 1 2 "Place in cricket history is assured for gifted Shearer". The Irish Times. Retrieved 17 April 2022.
  6. ↑ Donald Shearer – FIFA competition record (archived)
  7. ↑ "Edgar Shearer Bio, Stats, and Results | Olympics at Sports-Reference.com". 18 April 2020. Archived from the original on 18 April 2020.
  8. ↑ "Football, Men – Quarter-Finals, Match #3". Olympedia. Retrieved 17 April 2022.
  9. ↑ "The Home of CricketArchive". cricketarchive.com.
  10. ↑ "Australia in British Isles 1938". Cricket Archive. Retrieved 17 April 2022.
  11. ↑ "Ireland v Australians in 1938". Cricket Archive. Retrieved 17 April 2022.
  12. ↑ "Donald Shearer". ESPN Cricinfo. Retrieved 17 April 2022.
  13. ↑ United Kingdom list (1): "No. 37407". The London Gazette. 28 December 1945. pp. 1–132.
  14. ↑ "THE BELFAST GAZETTE, 26TH JANUARY, 1979" (PDF). The Gazette. Retrieved 17 April 2022.
  15. ↑ "EDR Shearer - a sporting legend". Cricket Europe. Retrieved 17 April 2022.
  16. ↑ "Obituaries in 1999". Wisden. 6 December 2005. Retrieved 17 April 2022.
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