The Celt who led Leicester City and almost won the league

The Celtic Great who led Leicester City to within a point of winning the league…

Another look back into the archives of The Celtic Star to share another fascinating Celtic story from the late, great Celtic historian David Potter…

Adams, McNair and Orr… it’s the start of one of the best Celtic teams of all, and Willie Orr was their captain and leader, but curiously, he isn’t talked about as much as other members of the team.

Not only that but he was a great manager and it could be argued that he could have been a great assistant manager and possible successor to Willie Maley. He was bright, intelligent, hardworking and totally dedicated to the cause. However, as a left-back (a fairly unspectacular position on the pitch, although men like Dan Doyle and Tommy Gemmell would have disagreed!) he was largely ignored by the hagiographers.

Born in 1873, he played for Airdrie and was with Preston North End in 1897 when he became one of the first wave of Maley recruits that summer.

He was mainly a left-half in those days, but played an honorable part in Celtic winning the League in 1898, sometimes at left-half and sometimes at right-half, in no way looking out of place alongside strong men like Sandy McMahon and Dan Doyle.

Willie Orr during his time at Preston NE

He was less successful in the 1898/99 season and for some reason missed the Scottish Cup final that year, but played a glorious part in winning the Scottish Cup in 1900, having the intelligence to know how to play against him. wind (the simple method of holding the ball and if you have to pass, passing the ball along the ground a short distance) and thus winning his first Scottish Cup medal.

He was then capped three times for Scotland, though never against England.

Not the least of Maley’s fortunate decisions in 1904 was the appointment of Orr as captain while simultaneously moving him to left-back, and this allowed the strong back half of Young, Loney and Hay to unite.

Celtic never looked back and Orr led the team to three successive Scottish League titles in 1905, 1906 and 1907. The 1904 Scottish Cup was all about Jimmy Quinn, but the 1907 Scottish Cup Final against Hearts was no less historically significant. .

Firstly, it was part of the first League and Scottish Cup double, for which Orr deserves as much credit as anyone, and although nobody knew it at the time, his penalty conversion in the Scottish Cup final changed. the course of Scottish football history in that he propelled Celtic to great victory and sustained success and in doing so, it condemned Hearts to 50 years of mediocrity, with a long-standing and permanent inferiority complex about Celtic that is sadly so evident to this day.

The 1907 Scottish Cup Final was also virtually the end of Orr’s brilliant Celtic career as he was soon replaced by the younger and faster Jamie Weir, some 14 years his junior! Orr was now 34, took things in stride, retired and disappeared from football for a while.

He became involved with Airdrie, one of his previous clubs, and after the war we see him as manager of Airdrie. It was phenomenally successful with players such as Hughie Gallacher and Bob McPhail and in 1924 Airdrie won the Scottish Cup, the only major trophy they ever won!

Orr could have taken Airdrie further but it was the 1920s and his good players were sold elsewhere and he himself moved on to try his luck as manager of Leicester City. Here again he enjoyed more than a little success and with several Scottish players in his squad, not least John ‘Tokey’ Duncan, once of Raith Rovers, he took them to second place in the English League in 1929, losing narrowly and unfortunately to The Wednesday (we know them better as Sheffield Wednesday) by a point.

Willie Orr and the Leicester City side

He returned to Scotland in the 1930s, where he was far less successful as manager of Falkirk, where he found himself suspended sine die on 4 April 1935 after allegedly trying to bribe an opposition player to be “sick” or ‘injured’ and it doesn’t prove against Falkirk.

Orr protested his innocence and received wide support from many quarters – Falkirk themselves and Leicester City, but significantly not Celtic in circumstances where it was felt that Willie Maley’s intervention might have been significant. Does that tell us anything?

Orr never returned to football, even after his sine die suspension was lifted two years later. He worked as manager of W.Alexander bus depot in Crieff for several years before retiring. He died in Airdrie in February 1946.

He was 72, a powerful footballer and a great, underrated Celt.

Leicester City pay their own tribute to ex-Celt Willie Orr on their official website with this feature from club historian John Hutchinson… WATCH HERE.

David Potter

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