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| William Eadie |
 William Eadie was born on Wednesday, 14th June, 1882, in Dunblane, Stirlingshire. The goalkeeper signed for Thistle in December, 1908, having most recently been with Dunblane. Aged 26, he made his debut appearance on Saturday, 5th December, 1908, in a 3-2 defeat at home to St Mirren in the SFL First Division. There were no clean-sheets for William during his spell with Thistle. He played his last game for the club on Saturday, 13th March, 1909, in a 4-2 defeat away to Hamilton Academical in the SFL First Division, having appeared as a Jag on 6 occasions. His club-list included Strathallan, Queen's Park, Dunblane, St Mirren, Partick Thistle and East Fife. William died on Friday, 23rd April, 1915, in Ypres, Belgium, aged 32.
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 William was the youngest of four brothers, all of whom played football to a decent standard. He started his career with Queen’s Park in 1900, and played intermittently for the Spiders until 1903. Being an amateur he played for Dunblane for a period, and was part of the Perthshire Cup winning team in 1906. William didn’t stay long at St Mirren, who he signed for next, and played 1 match before moving onto the Jags in December 1908, aged 26. William made 6 appearances for the Jags, getting his chance as a result of an injury to Lee Massey. His final game was a 4-2 defeat away to Hamilton Academical on 13 March 1909. William did sign for East Fife, but didn’t play any games for them. It’s claimed that he appeared on their team sheet the day he emigrated to Canada! He sailed on 20 March 1913. When war broke out, William enlisted in 10 Battalion of the Canadian Expeditionary Force. He enlisted under the name of William Prince. It’s not known why he used this name. This was the nom de guerre he used when he signed his attestation paper. Sergeant William Eadie, known as Prince, was killed in action on 23 April 1915 at Gravenstafel Ridge, St Julien, during the 2nd Battle of Ypres. He is commemorated on the St-Julian Memorial, and on the Menin Gate. William was one of 12 players or officials who had been involved with Dunblane FC and who never came home, a heavy price to pay for a small community. There are two excellent articles in the Scottish Sport History website, on William and on the the Dunblane FC sacrifice .
We commemorate his life in our feature piece, The Partick Thistle Fallen →. |
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