The latest in the connections series is quite surprising, but not unique! William Sturrock Maxwell is so famous that no one can decide what his real name is! Willie, Wullie, Billy or even FW (more of that later), was the first of 2 Scots to manage the Red Devils of Belgium, more of the other later. I can say for certain that Willie played for Dundee FC, Stoke, Third Lanark, Sunderland and Bristol City. I can also confirm that he was connected with Leopold FC before becoming the manager of the Red Devils and the Belgium Olympic football squad? I hope that all will become clear with this story...

William Sturrock Maxwell was born in Arbroath on 21st September 1876 and, apparently, played for the local team before joining Dundee FC during the 1894-95 season.

His playing career with Dundee is strange as he never played a League match for them. He made his first appearance on 24th November 1894, in a Scottish Cup 1st round tie, away to Orion. Dundee won the match 5-1 with Willie scoring 3 goals. Despite his 'hat-trick' heroics Willie did not appear again until 15th December at home to St Mirren in the 2nd round of the Scottish Cup. The Carolina Port side won 2-0 with Willie scoring 1 goal. He scored another goal in a friendly match at home to Lochee United on 5th January 1895. His next competative match came against Celtic on 19th January, again in the Scottish Cup. Dundee won 1-0 to set up a, home, semi-final meeting with Renton. Willie failed to play in the match at Carolina Port which finished 1-1 and led to a replay at Hampden Park a week later. On 23rd February 20,000 people watched Dundee and Renton produce a 3-3 draw, with Willie scoring Dundees' 1st, and the need for a 2nd replay. This time Parkhead was the venue, and 29,000 people saw Renton progress to the final after a 3-0 win. This brought an end to his competative appearances with the impressive record of 5 goals in 5 games.

I have information that, at some point between leaving Arbroath and joining Stoke for the start of the 1895-96 season, Maxwell played 1 game for Hearts, but I cannot confirm anything about this.

For the next 6 seasons Willie played for Stoke making 153 league appearances, scoring 74 goals. He also played 17 times in the FA Cup, scoring 10 goals. It is during this time that he played his only game for Scotland on 2nd April 1898 against England (more of them later). Willie became the 291st player to be capped by Scotland in their 65th International match. The match was played at Parkhead and finished in a 1-3 defeat for the Scots.

From Stoke Willie moved north again to Third Lanark for a season. Although details are hard to find, and confirm, it is reported that he finished the season as top scorer in the Scottish Division 1. This led to another move south.

This time Sunderland was the destination for a brief stay. I can say for certain that he played against 6 different teams and scored 3 goals between 1st September 1902 and 3rd January 1903. On 1st September he played against Nottingham Forest in a 0-1 defeat. In the next game against Wolverhampton Wanderers he scored 2 goals in a 3-3 draw, the other goal was scored by another Scotsman J. Gemmell. He then plays in the next 4 games without scoring.  His final game came against Wolves on 3rd January in a 3-0 win, Maxwell scored the 3rd goal with the other scorers being A. McCombie and J. Millar (both Scottish). In all he made 7 league appearances and scored 3 goals for Sunderland before moving to Millwall Athletic.

This move again comes with no real details, other than his next move is in 1905 when he is listed with Bristol City. In his 1st season City gained promotion from the Second Division with Billy scoring 25 goals in 38 appearances. The following season City kept up the good form and finished 2nd in the First Division with Billy contributing 17 goals from 37 games. In 4 seasons at Bristol City Billy made 125 league appearances and scored 61 goals. He also appeared 5 times in the FA Cup and scored 3 goals.

It is now that his Belgian adventure begins as does the confusion! The first information I found mentions that he moved to FC Leopold as manager, but now I think it may have been as player/manager. In the 2 full seasons he was with FC Leopold they finished 10th and 9th in the Belgian Division 1.

For some strange reason he is thought to be a good candidate to become the manager of the Belgian national side. His first match in charge took place in Saint-Ouen, Paris, on 28th January 1912 and resulted in a 1-1 draw with France. The second game has a more remarkable result of Belgium 9 Switzerland 2! He then continues until 26th April 1914 and a 2-4 defeat by Holland. It then appears that the War led to him leaving Belgium, probably a wise move! After the War he makes a return with another draw against France, this time it is 2-2 at Racing Brussels. His big success came when he led Belgium to the Gold medal position at the 1920 Olympics in Antwerp. Belgium beat Czechoslovakia 2-0 in the final held at Vav Beerschot. Maxwell reaches another managerial high, in Antwerp on 1st November 1923, when Belgium become the first country to avoid defeat against England with a 2-2 draw. This came almost 8 months after a 1-6 defeat by England at Bramall Lane, Sheffield. In the 1924 Olympic games, held in Paris, Belgium played only 1 match a 1-8 defeat by Sweden. Maxwell remained in charge until 5th June 1928 and another defeat from Holland. In a match played at Schuttersveld, Rotterdam, Holland won 3-1 to finish third in the Olympic football tournament. Maxwell holds the dubious honour of managing Belgium for their longest run of consecutive defeats, 7 matches (8 matches without a win),  between 1st May 1927 (2-3 versus Holland) and 11th March 1928 (1-1 versus Holland). During this sequence Belgium also lost 1-9 to England, on 11th May 1927 at the Oscar Bossaert Stadium, Brussels. The England forward line demolished the Belgian defence, the goals were all scored by numbers 7 to 11, with Dixie Deans scoring a 'hat-trick'. In all Maxwell had been in charge of Belgium for 74 games.

Two players stand out from the many that played for Belgium during his time in charge. Firstly there is Francois Demol who made all of his 19 appearances under Maxwell and then became manager of the Red Devils himself for 8 matches. The other is Yvan (Ivan?) Thys who made all of his 20 appearances under Maxwell but is better known as the father of Guy  a future player and manager of Belgium.

It appears that the end of his time in charge of Belgium was his last involvement in football as no other information is available. The last information I have uncovered relates to his death. William Sturrock Maxwell died 14th July 1940, and was survived by his wife Mary (died 21 June 1957), is buried in Stone Cemetry, Stone, Staffordshire.

*I can only confirm him playing in the Lochee United friendly because he scored a goal. Dundee played 7 other games during the season that I do not have line-ups for, but I like his complete record for Dundee of 6 in 6.
*Two of the websites I used to research this article include The Rood Devils Archive and the KBVB official site and both list WS Maxwell as FW. I believe this is a result of his playing career as a forward and team line ups before numbers listing him as fw (forward) Maxwell.
*Other websites that came in use are www.since1888.com , www.englandstats.com  and blackcatstats.