William Emerson (16 December 1891 – 19 January 1961) was an Irish

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball to score a goal. Unqualified, the word ''football'' normally means the form of football that is the most popular where the word is used. Sports commonly c ...

player, who played as a

midfielder A midfielder is an outfield position in association football. Midfielders may play an exclusively defensive role, breaking up attacks, and are in that case known as defensive midfielders. As central midfielders often go across boundarie ...

for

Burnley Burnley () is a town and the administrative centre of the wider Borough of Burnley in Lancashire, England, with a 2001 population of 73,021. It is north of Manchester and east of Preston, at the confluence of the River Calder and River Bru ...

and

Glentoran Glentoran Football Club is a professional football club that plays in the NIFL Premiership. The club was founded in 1882. History Early history In 1914, Glentoran won the Vienna Cup, becoming the first United Kingdom team to win a European t ...

Club career

A talented right half, Billy Emerson sprang from the Owen O'Cork club on east Belfast's Beersbridge Road, a little club that reared many young players for its big league neighbours

. After being snapped up by the Glens in 1912, he made five appearances, scoring three goals in wins against

Derry City Derry, officially Londonderry (), is the second-largest city in Northern Ireland and the fifth-largest city on the island of Ireland. The name ''Derry'' is an anglicisation of the Old Irish name (modern Irish: ) meaning 'oak grove'. The ...

and Shelbourne. Glentoran finished as champions that season and the following year, Emerson was part of the successful team that lifted both the

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 ...

and

City Cup The City Cup was a rugby league competition involving Australian premiership teams. The post season tournament was a regular feature in the years 1912–1925. City Cups were also played in 1937, 1942 and 1959. The inaugural city cup was contested ...

. He was also part of the squad that traveled to the continent and brought back the Vienna Cup.One Saturday Before The War: How two Scottish brothers fill in blanks of history-making team
Clive Lindsay, BBC Sport, 11 December 2022 William Emerson made almost 300 appearances for Glentoran before joining Burnley during the 1921–22 season. Emerson first met the Burnley team in

Vienna en, Viennese , iso_code = AT-9 , registration_plate = W , postal_code_type = Postal code , postal_code = , timezone = CET , utc_offset = +1 , timezone_DST ...

in 1914 when his club toured

Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a Continent#Subcontinents, subcontinent of Eurasia ...

and Burnley secured his transfer towards the end of the 1921–22 season. Emerson made his debut for the then reigning league champions in front of 30,000 spectators in a 1-1 draw with

Cardiff City Cardiff City Football Club ( cy, Clwb Pêl-droed Dinas Caerdydd) is a professional association football club based in Cardiff, Wales. It competes in the Championship, the second tier of the English football league system. Founded in 1899 as R ...

. He spent parts of three seasons at

Turf Moor Turf Moor is an association football stadium in Burnley, Lancashire, England, which has been the home of Burnley F.C. since 1883. This unbroken service makes Turf Moor the second-longest continuously used ground in English professional football ...

playing 45 times, but like some of his Glentoran colleagues before him, moved back to the Oval. After departing Burnley, Billy Emerson returned to Belfast where he played with Glentoran for two more years until 1926. In his two spells at the Oval, Emerson made more than 300 appearances. He also played with Glentoran's cross city rivals Linfield and also enjoyed two spells back in east Belfast with Dundela.

International career

Emerson earned his first cap for pre-partition

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 ...

against England in October 1919. He would earn a further 10 caps for Ireland, scoring once. Five of his caps were earned at Burnley while the remaining six he won while on Glentoran's books. His six caps while at Glentoran makes him the most capped player in the club's history. All 11 of Emerson's Ireland caps came in

Home International Championship The British Home Championship * sco, Hame Internaitional Kemp * gd, Farpais lìg eadar-nàiseanta * cy, Pencampwriaeth y Pedair Gwlad, name=lang (historically known as the British International Championship or simply the International Champio ...

games. His last cap came on 20 October 1923 in a 2-1 victory over

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

Belfast Belfast ( , ; from ga, Béal Feirste , meaning 'mouth of the sand-bank ford') is the capital and largest city of Northern Ireland, standing on the banks of the River Lagan on the east coast. It is the 12th-largest city in the United Kingdo ...

.
Clarets Mad

References

External links

Northern Ireland's Footballing GreatsWilliam Emerson at Clarets MadThe Northern Ireland-Glentoran connection
{{DEFAULTSORT:Emerson, William 1891 births 1961 deaths Irish association footballers (before 1923) Burnley F.C. players Glentoran F.C. players Dundela F.C. players Pre-1950 IFA men's international footballers Sportspeople from Enniskillen Willowfield F.C. players Linfield F.C. players Men's association football midfielders Ireland (IFA) men's wartime international footballers Association footballers from County Fermanagh