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Personal
Fullname: Donald Watt
aka: Don Watt
Born: 23 July 1953
Birthplace: […]
Signed: October 1970
Left: September 1973
Position: Defender, Right-back
Debut: Celtic 2-1 Dumbarton, 29 July 1972, Drybrough Cup
Internationals: none
Biog
Donald Watt’s first club, before being farmed out to Shettleston, was Eastercraigs Amateurs where he played alongside two other future Celts – Jackie McNamara (Sr) and Jim McSorley. Donald Watt had impressed enough at Eastercraigs to have all the scouts sniffing and Alex Wright had tried to sign him to St Mirren only to be beaten to the signature by Celtic.
Donald played a lot of games for Shettleston towards the end of the 1969/70 season and the beginning of the following season, always on the left side of the park, nearly always at left-back. He helped get them to the Central League Cup final in June 1970 but Cambuslang Rangers won 2-1 at Southcroft Park. Watt (16 years old) and Jim McSorley (17) both played in the final. Celtic called up Watt in October 1970.
He played in a pre-season Friendly against Queen’s Park in 1971 when he came on in the second half for Jim Craig.
He played just the one game in the 1972 pre-season Drybrough Cup tournament, in a 2-1 victory over Dumbarton. He was taken off after 53 minutes with a calf injury; it was ironic as he won his place playing right-back in the first place as all three of Celtic’s right-backs were unavailable that day through injury.
Sadly, he didn’t win any more first team appearances and he never got to play for the first team in any of the main senior first team competitions. He went on to Dumbarton in mid September 1973 signed at the second attempt by their manager Alex Wright. He was in their team which drew 2-2 at Celtic Park and effectively ended Celtic’s hopes of achieving 10-in-a-row, along with two other ex-Celts, Willie Wallace and John Cushley.
Dumbarton manager Alex Wright said of him:
“Donald is as good a signing I have made for Dumbarton. In fact if a poll had to be taken now as to the most consistent player of the season (1974-75), he’d definitely win it.”
In season 1975/76, Dumbarton with Donald Watt were to shine, and were on their way to their first national cup semi-final in almost 80 years having disposed of both the clubs who would finish above them in Division 1’s promotion places. Hearts provided the opposition at Hampden and, after a hard fought 0-0 draw in which Dumbarton had the better chances, they were unable to recover from the lost of an early deflected own goal and sadly just missed out on European competition with Hearts eventually heading into Europe as defeated Cup Finalists.
He went on to East Stirlingshire at the end of the 1979-80 season and had a further two seasons there.
Playing Career
Players Who Never Played a Game M – Z)
| APPEARANCES (subs) |
LEAGUE | SCOTTISH CUP | LEAGUE CUP | DRYBROUGH CUP |
EUROPE | TOTAL |
| 1972 | 0 | 0 | 0 | (1) | 0 | (1) |
| Goals | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
Honours with Celtic
none