William Ralston Murray Buchan (17 October 1914 – 6 July 2003) was a Scottish professional football player and manager. He played for Celtic, Blackpool,
Hull City
Hull City Association Football Club is a professional football club based in Hull, East Riding of Yorkshire, England, that compete in the . They have played home games at the MKM Stadium since moving from Boothferry Park in 2002. The club's t ...
East Stirlingshire
East Stirlingshire Football Club is a Scotland, Scottish association football club based in the town of Falkirk. The club was founded in 1881 and competes in the , in the fifth tier of the Scottish football league system. The club's origins ca ...
.
Buchan signed professional forms with Celtic in 1933 and spent four years with the
Glasgow
Glasgow ( ; sco, Glesca or ; gd, Glaschu ) is the most populous city in Scotland and the fourth-most populous city in the United Kingdom, as well as being the 27th largest city by population in Europe. In 2020, it had an estimated popul ...
club, winning the
Scottish League Division One
The Scottish Football League (SFL) was a league featuring professional and semi-professional football clubs mostly from Scotland.One club, Berwick Rangers, is based in the town of Berwick-upon-Tweed, which is located approximately 4 km sout ...
Scottish Cup
The Scottish Football Association Challenge Cup,1937.
In 1937, Buchan signed for Joe Smith's Blackpool for £10,000,Buchan, Willie at TheCelticWiki /ref> then a record transfer fee involving a Scottish club, making his debut on 20 November 1937 in a 2–0 defeat at local rivals Preston North End. He scored his first goals for the club two games later, in a 2–2 draw at
Middlesbrough
Middlesbrough ( ) is a town on the southern bank of the River Tees in North Yorkshire, England. It is near the North York Moors national park. It is the namesake and main town of its local borough council area.
Until the early 1800s, the a ...
on 4 December. He went on to score ten more goals in the 23 remaining games of the league season and, with his total twelve goals, finished joint-top scorer with
Bobby Finan
Robert Joseph Finan (1 March 1912 – 25 July 1983) was a Scottish professional footballer. He played as a forward.
Club career
Finan was born in Old Kilpatrick in West Dunbartonshire. He started his career at Scottish junior club Yoker Athlet ...
Jock Dodds
Ephraim Dodds (7 September 1915 – 23 February 2007) was a Scottish professional footballer. He played in the 1936 FA Cup Final, and, at the time of his death was the oldest surviving player to have played in a final at Wembley Stadium.
Club ...
, the pair scoring ten goals apiece. During the first of six seasons of inter-
war
War is an intense armed conflict between states, governments, societies, or paramilitary groups such as mercenaries, insurgents, and militias. It is generally characterized by extreme violence, destruction, and mortality, using regular o ...
football that followed, Buchan returned to Glasgow in an attempt to re-join Celtic, but the club showed little enthusiasm. He instead joined his local team, Stenhousemuir, as a guest player. When the club closed down for the duration of the war, Buchan returned to England to become a PT instructor in the
Royal Air Force
The Royal Air Force (RAF) is the United Kingdom's air and space force. It was formed towards the end of the First World War on 1 April 1918, becoming the first independent air force in the world, by regrouping the Royal Flying Corps (RFC) an ...
. Buchan made one appearance for
Scotland
Scotland (, ) is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a Anglo-Scottish border, border with England to the southeast ...
in a wartime international.
At the end of the war, Buchan returned to Blackpool. In Buchan's final season at the seaside, 1947–48, he made fourteen appearances in a start-stop season, his place in the line-up restricted due to the form of
Stan Mortensen
Stanley Harding Mortensen (26 May 1921 – 22 May 1991) was an English professional footballer, most famous for his part in the 1953 FA Cup Final (subsequently known as the "Matthews Final"), in which he became the only player ever to score a ha ...
,
Stanley Matthews
Sir Stanley Matthews, CBE (1 February 1915 – 23 February 2000) was an English footballer who played as an outside right. Often regarded as one of the greatest players of the British game, he is the only player to have been knighted while sti ...
and Ernie Taylor. His four goals game in two games: two in a 2–2 draw with
Wolves
The wolf (''Canis lupus''; : wolves), also known as the gray wolf or grey wolf, is a large canine native to Eurasia and North America. More than thirty subspecies of ''Canis lupus'' have been recognized, and gray wolves, as popularly un ...
on 6 September 1947, and two (one a penalty) in a 3–1 victory over
Charlton Athletic
Charlton Athletic Football Club is an English professional football club based in Charlton, south-east London, which compete in . Their home ground is The Valley, where the club have played since 1919. They have also played at The Mount in ...
at
Bloomfield Road
Bloomfield Road is a single-tier football stadium in Blackpool, Lancashire, England, which has been the home of Blackpool F.C. since 1901. It is the third stadium in the club's existence, the previous two being Raikes Hall Gardens and the At ...
on 29 November. His final appearance for the club occurred on 1 May 1948, the final day of the league season, in a 7–0 demolition of Preston North End at
Deepdale
Deepdale is a football stadium in the Deepdale area of Preston, England, the home of Preston North End. Deepdale is "widely recognised as being the oldest 'continuously used' football stadium in the world, though this is contested".
History ...
.
Buchan joined Hull for the start of the 1948–49 campaign. In his only season with the club, he made forty league appearances, scoring twelve goals.
In 1949, he joined Gateshead, with whom he made 88 league appearances and scored 16 goals. After a short spell as
player-manager
A player-coach (also playing coach, captain-coach, or player-manager) is a member of a sports team who simultaneously holds both playing and coaching duties. A player-coach may be a head coach or an assistant coach. They may make changes to the s ...
of Northern Irish club Coleraine, Buchan finished his career in his native Scotland with
East Stirlingshire
East Stirlingshire Football Club is a Scotland, Scottish association football club based in the town of Falkirk. The club was founded in 1881 and competes in the , in the fifth tier of the Scottish football league system. The club's origins ca ...
Scottish Cup
The Scottish Football Association Challenge Cup,1936–37
;Hull City
*
Football League Third Division North
The Third Division North of the Football League was a tier in the English football league system from 1921 to 1958. It ran in parallel with the Third Division South with clubs elected to the League or relegated from a higher division allocated t ...