Ernie Watkins really became better known after he left Barnet but it was at Underhill that he began his career. He made his Barnet debut in the 1919/20 season on 10th January 1920 in a London Senior Cup 1st round match against Hampstead Town at Underhill. Barnet won the match 2-0 with both goals being scored by Ernie Pett and the team that day was; Green, H King, Saggers, Skeggs, Allen, Emslie, Pett, Chandler, Coombes, E T Watkins, Law.
Watkins scored his first goal for the club in the 2nd round match at Wimbledon, who defeated Barnet 2-1 and Watkins scored 5 goals for Barnet in that first season, including the opening goal in a 2-0 win over Leavesden in the final of the Herts Charity Cup.
The following season, 1920/21, saw the emergence of a prolific scorer in Alf Jennings, plus another regular scorer in J Fillistone. Jennings left the club in January to emigrate to Australia, but Watkins and Fillistone helped contribute to the club finishing a creditable 6th in the Athenian League and reaching the semi-final of the Middlesex Senior Cup. Watkins finished the season with 15 goals.
Ernie’s last game for Barnet was a 1-0 defeat away at Summerstown in the Athenian League on 23rd April 1921 and he joined Finchley soon afterwards. In October 1922, Watkins joined Birmingham City and made his league debut, in the 1st Division, in November in a goalless draw at home to Cardiff City. However, he failed to make it at St Andrews and moved to Southend United in February 1924.
At Southend, Watkins scored at a rate of every other game, scoring 17 goals in 34 matches for the 3rd Division South club, but a ‘breach of club rules’ following a Football Combination match against Chelsea, in which Ernie scored four goals, lead to him being suspended and placed on the transfer list.
He joined Brentford in 1926, who also played in the 3rd Division south and scored 59 goals in 130 matches for the ‘other Bees’ and was their leading scorer for seasons, 1926/27 and 1928/29. He was described as ‘a goal poacher whose best work was done in the area’.
Watkins moved to 2nd Division Millwall in 1930, but scored just one goal in 6 matches there. In the same year, he joined Fulham scoring 10 goals in 17 matches before having a short spell at Gillingham and finishing his career at Charlton Athletic where he scored 6 goals in 15 matches. It was at Charlton where he sustained a knee injury which forced his to retire. Ernie died in 1976, aged 78, in Finchley, where he was born.