| Donald Shearer | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Fullname: | Edgar Donald Reid Shearer | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Birth Date: | 6 June 1909 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Birth Place: | Hendon, England | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Death Place: | Sudbury, England | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Clubs1: | Casuals | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Clubs2: | Corinthian | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Clubs3: | Derry City | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Nationalteam1: | England amateur | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Nationalyears2: | 1936 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Nationalteam2: | Great Britain | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Nationalcaps2: | 1 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Nationalgoals2: | 1 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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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]
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]
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] He played in Great Britain's match against Poland, scoring a goal.[7]
He was made several offers to turn professional, including from Arsenal, but he declined,[3] before he retired from football in 1939.[2]
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.[8] 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,[9] 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.[10]
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.[11]
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.[12] 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.[13]
He died in July 1999,[14] at the age of 90, and his obituary was published in Wisden.[15]