388 Willie Buchan

Biography

When Hull City signed experienced inside right Willie Buchan for £5,000 in January 1948, it was an early statement of intent by the Hull City board that led, three months later, to the recruitment of England international Raich Carter as City’s player-manager. Buchan was signed under the tenure of Major Frank Buckley and promptly scored two penalties on his debut against Rotherham United – good start. However by mid-March 1948 Buchan, who had not added to those two goals, was dropped and placed on the transfer list alongside several more long-standing colleagues in the City squad. Buckley evidently relented at the end of March and Buchan scored on his return in a victory over New Brighton. However within a fortnight Buckley was working out his notice, Carter was recruited and Buchan was back in the first eleven, adding two more goals to his tally by the end of the season.

Buchan began the 1948/49 season in the first team but contributed only two goals to the club’s remarkable nine game winning streak that opened the season and began the elevation of manager Carter to legendary status. In October 1948 City signed Danish forward Viggo Jensen – Jensen assumed the inside left role, Carter switched to inside right and Willie Buchan was left without a shirt. He returned for fourteen games between December 1948 and February 1949, contributing six goals including a brace in the famous Christmas Day 3-2 win over title challengers Rotherham United in front of City’s record gate of 49,655 (though that record was surpassed a couple of months later when 55,019 witnessed Manchester United’s visit in the FA Cup Sixth Round). With Carter returned to inside right in March 1949, Buchan was again out of the team and started only four more matches as the Tigers swept to the Division Three North title and promotion back to Division Two. With City elevated to a new level for the 1949/50 season Carter did not turn to Buchan at all, November 1949 he was sold along with full back Norman Fowler to Gateshead for a £5,000 fee.

William Ralston Murray Buchan was born and raised in Grangemouth on the Forth Estuary. After spending his late teenage years working as a clerk in a local office and playing for local side Cowie Juveniles, Willie came to prominence when he played for the Stirlingshire county juniors side in May 1932. In August 1932 he joined Scottish Junior League side Grange Rovers, after scoring twice on his debut he quickly caused a stir across much of the Scottish professional football scene.

In January 1933 Buchan joined Scottish Division One giants Glasgow Celtic amid frenzied interest from a dozen or more Scottish sides including Auld Firm rivals Glasgow Rangers. He made his debut for Celtic in August 1933 against Queen of the South and quickly became a fans’ favourite – hardly surprising as in four seasons he scored 59 goals in 134 senior appearances. He was a key player in the Celtic side that won the Scottish Championship in the 1935/36 season, the club’s first league victory for ten years, and was Celtic’s main man in the 1937 Scottish Cup final, creating the first goal and scoring the winner in a 2-1 victory over Aberdeen attended by a remarkable 146,400 people crammed into Hampden Park.

In November 1937, six months after that Hampden Park victory, Celtic sold Buchan to English Division One side Blackpool for a £10,000 fee that was at the time the record paid for a Scottish player. He spent two seasons at Bloomfield Road and was top scorer in both of them, scoring twelve goals in his first season and ten more in the 1938/39 season as he acclimatised to playing in the English top flight. The onset of World War Two halted his career at Blackpool and he returned to Scotland for a time to play wartime games for Celtic and Stenhousemuir. He became a Sargeant in the Royal Air Force during the war, where like many of his footballing contemporaries he served as a Physical Training instructor. Buchan played occasional further wartime games for a rich tapestry of clubs during his RAF days – Manchester United, Leicester City, Bath City, Aberaman and Hamilton Academicals.

Willie returned to Blackpool in January 1946 and played in the 1945/46 FA Cup, when the Football League resumed in August 1946 Willie resumed his fine form, scoring a September 1946 hattrick against Portsmouth. His final start for Blackpool in December 1947 took Buchan’s tally to 37 goals in 102 starts for the Tangerines – a record that encouraged his transfer to Hull City in January 1948.

Buchan left Hull City and signed for Gateshead in November 1949 and made his December 1949 debut against Crewe Alexandra. After six goalless appearances he was given a support role and it wasn’t until an April 1950 brace against Oldham Athletic that he opened his goals account. For the next two years Buchan was a first team regular for Gateshead until a broken leg sustained in April 1952 led to a premature end to his season and his time at Redheugh Park – he scored eighteen goals in precisely 100 appearances.

During his final season at Gateshead, Willie began coaching the Reserves as well as playing for the first team, a role he continued during the 1952/53 season as he recovered from his serious injury. In July 1953 Buchan was tempted to join Irish League side Coleraine as player/manager, but he left that role in January 1954 by mutual consent to reunite with his family in Scotland. After a year out of the game Willie joined Scottish League Division Two side East Stirlingshire in September 1955 and defied his 41 years to score on his debut against Berwick Rangers, but he hung up his boots once more in December 1955.

After football Buchan remained in Scotland and worked in the chemicals industry for ICI in his home town of Grangemouth. He remained fit all his life until a head injury suffered in a cycling accident meant he had to move to a nursing home in 2002 – Buchan died in Polmont in July 2003 at the fine age of 88.

While at Celtic, Buchan played twice for the Scottish League XI against their Irish counterparts in 1935 and 1937, scoring three goals. In 1943 he played a wartime international game for Scotland in which Raich Carter scored twice to inspire his England side to a 4-0 victory – however Buchan was never selected for full international honours.

Details

Nationality: Scotland
Date/Place of Birth: 17 October 1914, Grangemouth
Hull City First Game: 17 January 1948, Rotherham United H (Division Three North), 33 years, 92 days old
Hull City Final Game: 7 May 1949, Carlisle United A (Division Three North), 34 years, 202 days old

Clubs

Grange Rovers (1932-1933), Glasgow Celtic (1933-1937), Blackpool (1937-1948), Hull City (1948-1949), Gateshead (1949-1953), Coleraine (1953-1954), East Stirlingshire (1955)

Hull City Record

Career: 46 apps, 13 goals