William Robert McCracken (29 January 1883 – 20 January 1979) was a
Northern Irish
Northern Irish people is a demonym for all people born in Northern Ireland or people who are entitled to reside in Northern Ireland without any restriction on their period of residence. Most Northern Irish people either identify as Northern ...
footballer who played as a
defender. He is famous for inventing the
offside trap
Offside is one of the laws in association football, codified in Law 11 of the Laws of the Game. The law states that a player is in an offside position if any of their body parts, except the hands and arms, are in the opponents' half of the p ...
. He was a cousin of
Robert McCracken
Robert Chad McCracken is a British former professional boxer who competed from 1991 to 2001, and has since worked as a boxing trainer. He once challenged for the WBC middleweight title in 2000. At regional level, he held the British super-wel ...
who also had a career as a professional footballer.
Playing career
During his career, McCracken
captained both English club
Newcastle United
Newcastle United Football Club is an English professional football club, based in Newcastle upon Tyne, that plays in the Premier League – the top flight of English football. The club was founded in 1892 by the merger of Newcastle East End ...
and the
Ireland national side.
McCracken played for Newcastle from 1904 to 1924, helping them win three
Football League
The English Football League (EFL) is a league of professional football clubs from England and Wales. Founded in 1888 as the Football League, the league is the oldest such competition in the world. It was the top-level football league in Engla ...
titles and one
FA Cup
The Football Association Challenge Cup, more commonly known as the FA Cup, is an annual knockout football competition in men's domestic English football. First played during the 1871–72 season, it is the oldest national football competi ...
. In total he played 432 games for the ''Magpies'', scoring eight goals.
McCracken gained sixteen international caps (including one unofficial match against
Scotland
Scotland (, ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a border with England to the southeast and is otherwise surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean to the ...
in 1903, but excluding two '
Victory matches' in 1919 against the same opposition), scoring one goal.
[Bill McCracken]
Northern Ireland's Footballing Greats, 31 July 2007 His team mates while playing for
Ireland
Ireland ( ; ga, Éire ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe, north-western Europe. It is separated from Great Britain to its east by the North Channel (Grea ...
included
Archie Goodall
Archibald Lee Goodall (3 January 1865 – 20 November 1929) was an Irish footballer who made 429 appearances in the Football League for Preston North End, Aston Villa, Derby County, Glossop and Wolverhampton Wanderers. He won 10 caps at full i ...
,
Billy Scott,
Jack Kirwan
John Henry Kirwan (9 February 1878 – 9 January 1959) was an Irish football player and coach. As a player, he was described as an out and out winger with good pace and skills, playing as an outside-left for, among others, Everton, Tottenham ...
and
Robert Milne. During
World War I
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...
he helped to arrange two fundraising matches featuring top players and turned out for the England XI in both, facing Ireland on the second occasion.
[Testimonials, Clubs and Forces]
England Football Online
McCracken is one of just a few players whose actions have brought changes to the
Laws of the Game when, as a right full back at Newcastle, he masterminded the technique of making opposition forwards ruled "
offside" when the rules stated that three defenders must be between the attacking player and the goal line. So successful was McCracken's defensive ploy that the Offside Law was changed to "two defenders" between the foremost attacker and the goal line".
Managerial career
After leaving Newcastle he went on to become
Hull City
Hull City Association Football Club is a professional Association football, football club based in Kingston upon Hull, Hull, East Riding of Yorkshire, England, that compete in the . They have played home games at the MKM Stadium since moving ...
manager in 1923, and he took them to the FA Cup semi-final in 1930. He left the club a year later.
He later had a short term in charge of
Gateshead
Gateshead () is a large town in northern England. It is on the River Tyne's southern bank, opposite Newcastle upon Tyne, Newcastle to which it is joined by seven bridges. The town contains the Gateshead Millennium Bridge, Millennium Bridge, Sage ...
, before managing
Millwall
Millwall is a district on the western and southern side of the Isle of Dogs, in east London, England, in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. It lies to the immediate south of Canary Wharf and Limehouse, north of Greenwich and Deptford, east ...
from 1933 to 1936. He went on to manage the now defunct
Aldershot
Aldershot () is a town in Hampshire, England. It lies on heathland in the extreme northeast corner of the county, southwest of London. The area is administered by Rushmoor Borough Council. The town has a population of 37,131, while the Alders ...
, and later returned to Newcastle as a
scout
Scout may refer to:
Youth movement
*Scout (Scouting), a child, usually 10–18 years of age, participating in the worldwide Scouting movement
**Scouts (The Scout Association), section for 10-14 year olds in the United Kingdom
**Scouts BSA, sectio ...
.
[ In the 1970s, with McCracken in his 90s, he was scouting for ]Watford
Watford () is a town and borough in Hertfordshire, England, 15 miles northwest of Central London, on the River Colne.
Initially a small market town, the Grand Junction Canal encouraged the construction of paper-making mills, print works, a ...
.
Honours
As a player
Distillery[
*]Irish Football League
Irish may refer to:
Common meanings
* Someone or something of, from, or related to:
** Ireland, an island situated off the north-western coast of continental Europe
***Éire, Irish language name for the isle
** Northern Ireland, a constituent unit ...
champion: 1902–03
Nineteen or 19 may refer to:
* 19 (number), the natural number following 18 and preceding 20
* one of the years 19 BC, AD 19, 1919, 2019
Films
* ''19'' (film), a 2001 Japanese film
* ''Nineteen'' (film), a 1987 science fiction film
Music ...
* Irish Cup
The Irish Football Association Challenge Cup, commonly referred to as the Irish Cup (currently known as the Samuel Gelston's Whiskey Irish Cup for sponsorship purposes) is the primary football knock-out cup competition in Northern Ireland. Ina ...
winner: 1903
**Runner-up: 1902
Newcastle United
*Football League
The English Football League (EFL) is a league of professional football clubs from England and Wales. Founded in 1888 as the Football League, the league is the oldest such competition in the world. It was the top-level football league in Engla ...
champion: 1904–05
Nineteen or 19 may refer to:
* 19 (number), the natural number following 18 and preceding 20
* one of the years 19 BC, AD 19, 1919, 2019
Films
* ''19'' (film), a 2001 Japanese film
* ''Nineteen'' (film), a 1987 science fiction film
Music ...
, 1906–07
Nineteen or 19 may refer to:
* 19 (number), the natural number following 18 and preceding 20
* one of the years 19 BC, AD 19, 1919, 2019
Films
* ''19'' (film), a 2001 Japanese film
* ''Nineteen'' (film), a 1987 science fiction film
Music ...
, 1908–09
* FA Cup
The Football Association Challenge Cup, more commonly known as the FA Cup, is an annual knockout football competition in men's domestic English football. First played during the 1871–72 season, it is the oldest national football competi ...
winner: 1910
Events
January
* January 13 – The first public radio broadcast takes place; live performances of the operas '' Cavalleria rusticana'' and ''Pagliacci'' are sent out over the airwaves, from the Metropolitan Opera House in New York C ...
**Runner-up: 1908
Events
January
* January 1 – The British ''Nimrod'' Expedition led by Ernest Shackleton sets sail from New Zealand on the ''Nimrod'' for Antarctica.
* January 3 – A total solar eclipse is visible in the Pacific Ocean, and is the 46 ...
, 1911
A notable ongoing event was the Comparison of the Amundsen and Scott Expeditions, race for the South Pole.
Events January
* January 1 – A decade after federation, the Northern Territory and the Australian Capital Territory ...
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:McCracken, Billy
1883 births
1979 deaths
Association footballers from Belfast
Newcastle United F.C. players
Irish association footballers (before 1923)
Pre-1950 IFA international footballers
Football managers from Northern Ireland
English Football League players
English Football League managers
Lisburn Distillery F.C. players
Irish League representative players
NIFL Premiership players
Hull City A.F.C. managers
Gateshead A.F.C. managers
Millwall F.C. managers
Aldershot F.C. managers
Association football defenders
Association football scouts
Newcastle United F.C. non-playing staff
Watford F.C. non-playing staff
Ireland (IFA) wartime international footballers
FA Cup Final players