Frederick "Fred" Davis (born 1871) was an English

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

 football

Football (soccer)

Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a sport played between two teams of eleven players with a spherical ball...

er.

Davis was born in Smethwick

Smethwick

Smethwick is a town in the Metropolitan Borough of Sandwell, in the West Midlands of England. It is situated on the edge of the city of Birmingham, within the historic boundaries of Staffordshire, Worcestershire and Warwickshire....

 and played as a wing-half for local clubs, including Soho Villa and Birmingham St George's

Birmingham St George's F.C.

Birmingham St. George's F.C. was a football club based in Birmingham, England. They were formerly known as Mitchell St. George's F.C., a merger of Mitchells and St. George's in 1881 , changing to their new name in 1888...

 before in 1893 signing for Woolwich Arsenal

Arsenal F.C.

Arsenal Football Club is a professional English Premier League football club based in North London. One of the most successful clubs in English football, it has won 13 First Division and Premier League titles and 10 FA Cups...

, who had just become the first club from the south of England to join the Football League. He made his league debut for the side in their second-ever league match, a 3-2 defeat away to Notts County

Notts County F.C.

Notts County Football Club are an English professional football club based in Nottingham. They are the oldest of all the clubs in the world that are now professional, having been formed in 1862. They currently play in League One of The Football League, the third tier of the English football system...

 on September 9, 1893. He was a near ever-present for the 1893-94

1893-94 in English football

The 1893–94 season was the 23rd season of competitive football in England.-Events:The 1893–94 season saw four of the most famous teams in English Footballing history join the Second Division: Liverpool, Newcastle United, Manchester City, and the first team based in London, Woolwich Arsenal...

 season (missing only one more game) and continued to do so for the four seasons after that.

With Davis in the side Woolwich Arsenal mainly occupied mid-table of the Second Division

Football League Second Division

From 1892 until 1992, the Football League Second Division was the second highest division overall in English football.This ended with the creation of the FA Premier League, prior to the start of the 1992–93 season, which caused an administrative split between The Football League and the teams...

, reaching as high as 5th in 1897-98

1897-98 in English football

The 1897–98 season was the 27th season of competitive football in England.-Honours:Notes = Number in parentheses is the times that club has won that honour...

. After the end of the 1898-99

1898-99 in English football

The 1898–99 season was the 28th season of competitive football in England.-Events:This was the first season in which automatic promotion/relegation was introduced between the First and Second divisions. Both Divisions were expanded to 18 teams....

 season Davis left Arsenal to join First Division

Football League First Division

The First Division was a division of The Football League between 1888 and 2004 and the highest division in English football until the creation of the Premier League in 1992. The secondary tier in English football has since become known as the Championship....

 Nottingham Forest

Nottingham Forest F.C.

Nottingham Forest Football Club is an English Association Football club based in West Bridgford, Nottingham, that plays in the Football League Championship...

. He had played exactly 150 games for Arsenal in six seasons, scoring ten goals. However, at Forest he never played a single match and appears to have left football entirely by the year 1900.