[Lord Snooty]

June 23:

Willie MacFadyen was born on this date in 1904, in Overtown, a small mining village in North Lanarkshire. He signed for Motherwell in 1921 aged 17 and went on to be one of the all time top scorers in Scottish football. He is now positioned 8th in the Scottish League's all time scoring chart, but he isn't Motherwell's top scorer.

Willie scored 251 goals for the Well, but Hughie Ferguson tops their chart with 284. And it was Ferguson who kept Willie's career on hold to start with. He was stuck out on the wing whilst Ferguson was at the club, but when he was transferred to Cardiff City in the Football League First Division in 1925, Willie took over the centre forward role.

It was the 1931/32 season that Willie really made a name for himself. Willie and the Well won the league, with Willie scoring a record 52 goals in the season, from 34 games. It's a Scottish League record that still stands today.

He was a strong and pacy forward, standing five foot eight and weighing eleven stone and had many a chance created for him by the skills of George Stevenson and John McMenemy. They were a formidable strike force and with his remarkable strike rate and the fact that the SFA were only picking players for Scotland who played in Scotland, he must've earned a massive amount of caps for Scotland. Did he? Did he 'eck as like! He got two!

He played against Wales and Austria in 1934, scoring in both matches and never got selected again.

And so after 15 years with 251 goals in the bag, Willie got his big move south to join one of the biggest and best teams in England, Huddersfield Town in December 1936. Part of the deal was the return to Motherwell of Duncan Ogilvie, who had only been at Leeds Road for nine months. Also part of the deal was Town travelling to Fir Park for the Ben Ellis testimonial match, which finished 2-2 with Willie getting both Town goals.

Willie came in to replace the injured Alf Lythgoe and scored on his debut, a 4-0 home win against Liverpool. He scored in his first four matches and was in and out of the team for the rest of the season, sharing the 9 jersey with Frank Chivers. He scored 8 goals from 16 in that half season.

In the next season, he scored 11 goals, the first of which was the opening goal of the 37/38 season, a 3-1 home win against Blackpool. One of his last goals for Town was the 3rd goal in the FA Cup semi final win against Sunderland at Ewood Park. Which brings us to his final Town game. That was the FA Cup Final of 1938. Town lost 1-0 and that was Willie's third runners up medal after playing in two Scottish Cup finals for Motherwell.

A big game to end his Town career on, but then he was transferred to Clapton Orient, who were not far from bottom on Division Three (South). Seems a huge drop for the lad, even though he was 34 by now.

But then the war broke out and Willie joined the RAF as a PT instructor, turning out for various clubs in the wartime leagues. He played games for Blackpool, Nottingham Forest and Rochdale, as well as the RAF XI for who he played alongside the famous Stanley Matthews.

After the war, he was appointed manager of Dundee United in October 1945, staying in the job for nine years. Shortly after the club record defeat, 12-1 against Motherwell of all people, he resigned and never got another footy job, becoming a chiropodist instead.

He died in Birmingham in 1972 aged 68.