Willie Maxwell

After a playing career of more than 15 years, Willie Maxwell then embarked on a coaching career lasting a further 30 years. Born in Arbroath, he played briefly for his hometown team, as well as Hearts and Dundee, before a move to England, and the start of a six-year career with Stoke City. He was a free-scoring forward and was the club’s top scorer in five of his six seasons with them. In 1898 Maxwell won his only Scotland cap, in a 3-1 defeat by England at Glasgow. He returned to Scotland and joined Third Lanark for one season, 1901/02, and was the Scottish first division’s top scorer that season, albeit it with 10 goals, the lowest total ever for the season’s leading scorer in the top flight of Scottish football. He won his second representative honour that season, playing for the Scottish League against the Irish League.

After one year back in Scotland, Maxwell returned to England and joined Sunderland, and then Millwall, before embarking on a very successful period at Bristol City in 1905. In the 1905/06 season he was the top scorer in the English League with 27 goals as City won the second division title and gained promoted to the first division for the first time in their history.

A fine cricketer, Maxwell dovetailed his winter footballing career by playing cricket in the summer in Scotland, mostly with Arbroath United. He also played for one of the leading club sides in England, Stone in Staffordshire, where the legendary Test cricketer Sydney Barnes ended his career in 1940 at the age of 67.

Maxwell’s football playing career ended in 1909, and he accepted an offer to coach Leopold of Belgium, and little was it realised at the time, but Maxwell would change the shape of Belgian football forever. He trained another club side, Daring FC, before being appointed national coach in 1911, a position that he held until shortly before World War I. He returned to the job in 1920, and that year led Belgium to its greatest triumph, in winning the Olympic title. One hundred years later, it remained their only victory in a major football competition. Maxwell remained as national team coach until 1928 after 70 games in charge, and then coached at the Mechelen club Malines for 10 years. His final season was with Cercle Bruges in 1937/38 when they won the Belgian second division title.