Walter Keeton

William Walter Keeton (30 April 1905 – 10 October 1980) was an English cricketer who played in two Tests in 1934 and 1939. He was a Wisden Cricketer of the Year in 1940 and played first-class cricket as a right-handed opening batsman between 1926 and 1952 for Nottinghamshire.

Keeton scored a century against every other first-class county and his 312 not out made in just under eight hours against Middlesex at the Oval in 1939 is still a record for the Nottinghamshire team. He also played professional soccer for Nottingham Forest and Sunderland.

Keeton was born at Shirebrook, a mining community south-east of Chesterfield in Derbyshire. His parents were William and Mary Ann and both they and Keeton's older sister Doris were born at Eckington, another mining village to the north-east of Chesterfield; by the time of the 1911 census, the family was settled at Forest Town, a mining community in Mansfield, Nottinghamshire, where Keeton's father was employed as a stallman in a mine. Keeton remained in the Mansfield area all of his life and died at Forest Town. He married Florence E. Russell in the Mansfield registration district in 1929.

Keeton made his debut for Nottinghamshire's second eleven in 1925 and the following year made his first-team debut, playing in two County Championship matches as a lower middle-order batsman. The Nottinghamshire side of the late 1920s was a settled and successful unit under the captaincy of Arthur Carr, with apparently ageless batsmen such as George Gunn, Wilfred Payton and the slightly younger William Whysall, Willis Walker and Carr himself dominating the batting line-up. Keeton and other young batsmen such as Charles Harris and George Gunn junior were given few first-team opportunities, and Keeton played in just five games in 1928 and two in the Championship-winning season of 1929 – one of those two was against Oxford University – and none at all in both 1927 and 1930.