William John McAdams (20 January 1934 – 13 October 2002) was a Northern Irish

footballer A football player or footballer is a sportsperson who plays one of the different types of football. The main types of football are association football, American football, Canadian football, Australian rules football, Gaelic football, rugby ...

who played in the

inside forward Forwards (also known as attackers) are outfield positions in an association football team who play the furthest up the pitch and are therefore most responsible for scoring goals as well as assisting them. As with any attacking player, the role ...

position.

Club career

On leaving school at 15, he took an apprenticeship as a heating engineer and played as an amateur. At 17, he went to Burnley for a successful three-month trial but his father wouldn't agree to the terms offered. So he went back to Ireland where he signed professional forms for Distillery (Charles Buchan's Football Monthly, Jan 1967). He then played for Manchester City between 1953 and 1959, making 134 appearances and scoring 66 goals. This was in spite of not kicking a ball for two years because of a back injury which caused him to miss two FA Cup Finals. He scored in 10 consecutive matches between 9 October 1957 and 7 December 1957 (12 goals). He didn't score on 14 December 1957 but in his next match on 1 January 1958 he scored a hat-trick. (source www.statcity.co.uk) He then signed for Bolton Wanderers who hoped he could be successor to

Nat Lofthouse Nathaniel Lofthouse (27 August 1925 – 15 January 2011) was an English professional footballer who played as a forward for Bolton Wanderers for his entire career. He won 33 caps for England between 1950 and 1958, scoring 30 goals, with o ...

. In his first season with the team he scored 18 goals in 27 appearances. Don Revie brought him to Leeds but he only stayed briefly before forming part of an all-International inside forward line at Brentford for the 1962–63 season. Brentford won the 4th Division Championship with McAdams scoring 23 goals in 37 appearances. He then went on to score goals for Queens Park Rangers and Barrow whom he assisted to gain promotion from Division Four at the end of the 1966–67 season, the first of two at

Holker Street Holker Street ( known as the SO Legal Stadium for sponsorship purposes), is a sports stadium in Barrow-in-Furness, Cumbria, England. As well as being a football ground, it has also been used for motorcycle speedway. Most memorably, he scored 3 goals in a 1960 World Cup Qualifier against West Germany although Northern Ireland lost the match 4–3. Terry Neill (''Revelations of a Football Manager''1985), in remembering his own Northern Ireland days, refers to McAdams as one of "'the toothless ones', those players who had a habit of leaving their false teeth lying around... We called him 'Rocky' because of his scarred appearance. Most of his scars came from footballing injuries, but the worst was caused when he leaned forward in his car one day to change the station on his radio and crashed."

Honours

Brentford * Football League Fourth Division: 1962–63

References

1934 births 2002 deaths Northern Ireland men's international footballers Manchester City F.C. players Bolton Wanderers F.C. players Leeds United F.C. players Brentford F.C. players Queens Park Rangers F.C. players Barrow A.F.C. players Barrow A.F.C. managers Association footballers from Belfast Association footballers from Northern Ireland Men's association football forwards Association football managers from Northern Ireland {{NorthernIreland-footy-bio-stub