Background
Born in Burntisland, Fife, Danskin grew up in Kirkcaldy.
engineer association football player
Born in Burntisland, Fife, Danskin grew up in Kirkcaldy.
He played as an amateur for Kirkcaldy Wanderers, and amongst their players were Jack McBean and Peter Connolly, two players who would later join Danskin at Royal Arsenal. In 1885 Danskin moved to London to find work, and took a job at the Dial Square workshop at the Royal Arsenal in Woolwich. There he met several football enthusiasts, amongst them Jack Humble and former Nottingham Forest players Fred Beardsley and Morris Bates.
Together with Humble, Danskin is generally credited as the driving force behind the formation of a works football team, Dial Square Football Club. Danskin continued to play for Royal Arsenal, as the club were soon renamed afterwards, for the next two years.
However after an injury incurred in a match against Clapton in January 1889, Danskin elected to step down from the side and only played a few more rare occasions after that. He ended his official association with Arsenal and later became associated with a new works team from the area, Royal Ordnance Factories, which folded in c.
1896. He also officiated as a referee in local matches.
He later started up his own bicycle manufacturing business in Plumstead, before moving to Coventry in 1907 to work for the Standard Motor Company. In his later life he was troubled by ill-health, caused by injuries to his legs in his footballing days, and took early retirement.
After many years of ill-health, he died in a hospice in Warwick in 1948, at the age of 85. In 2007, to commemorate his role in the club"s history, the Arsenal Scotland Supporters Club dedicated a blue plaque to Danskin, near his birthplace in Burntisland.
During Arsenal Football Club"s 125th anniversary celebrations, David Danskin’s great-grandchildren, Two of the Club legend’s young relatives delivered the match ball for Arsenal’s 1-0 victory over Everton at Emirates Stadium as Arsenal celebrated another milestone.
He was a principal founding member of Dial Square Football Club, later renamed Royal Arsenal, the team that are today known as Arsenal.