Willie Henderson

Willie Henderson (born 24 January 1944, in Caldercruix, North Lanarkshire) is a retired Scottish football player. He played most of his career for Rangers, and spent the latter part of his career with Sheffield Wednesday, in Hong Kong with Hong Kong Rangers and with Airdrieonians. He was a prolific winger. He also featured at international level for Scotland. He is regarded as one of the best wingers ever to grace the Scottish game.

Rangers

Henderson made his career debut in 1960 at the age of 16. He was very pacey on the right wing and as he was at a small height of 5 foot and 4 inches he became known as 'Wee Willie'.

Henderson also had bad eyesight and he wore contact lenses. People found this amusing as they would often wonder how much better he would have been had his eyesight been better. Legend has it that late on in an Old Firm encounter he inquired on the sidelines, "How long to go, how long to go?" Jock Stein replied: "Go and ask at the other dugout, you bloody fool – this is the Celtic bench!"

During his time with Rangers he won the Scottish League twice, the Scottish Cup four times and the League Cup twice. He was also part of the Rangers team that got to the finals of the 1960-61 and 1966-67 Cup Winners Cup competitions, and was part of the Rangers campaign that eventually brought home the trophy in the 1971/72 season. He was not involved in the final, however, as he had left Rangers just prior, having fallen out with the then manager, Willie Waddell. Thus while he sat on a beach in South Africa, his former team-mates had their names carved onto the trophy. It was a very sad way to end his Rangers career. He made a total of 426 appearances between 1960 to 1972.

cotland

He made his debut for Scotland on October 20, 1962, against Wales in what was a 3-2 victory for Scotland. Also on his debut he scored what was to be the winning goal. He also scored in his second game for Scotland in a 5-1 victory over Northern Ireland. He went on to gain a further 27 caps and score three more goals, a total of 29 caps and five goals. His last game for Scotland was on April 21, 1971, in a 2-0 defeat by Portugal. In an interview with the Scotland on Sunday newspaper in April 2006, Henderson admitted that Scotland's failure to qualify for the 1966 and 1970 World Cups was a great disappointment to him as Scotland at that time had one of the best teams in Europe. "I can't believe that we had so many players who were genuine world class yet we didn't reach the best-ever finals of the biggest tournament of them all," said Henderson.

After Rangers

Henderson left Rangers at the end of the 1971-72 season, mainly because he had fallen out with the manager Willie Waddell who had left Henderson out of Rangers’ 3-2 European Cup Winners Cup Final victory over FC Dinamo Moscow in Barcelona in May 1972. Henderson later admitted that missing that game was one of the worst moments of his career. He signed for Sheffield Wednesday for the 1972-73 season and made his debut on the 12 August 1972 in a 3-0 victory over Fulham. Henderson was a great favourite with the Wednesday fans in the two seasons that he was there even though the club had little success. He made 50 appearances for Wednesday with six as substitute, scoring five goals in his two seasons there. His last appearance for the club was on 27 April 1974, the last match of the 1973-74 season against Bolton Wanderers, a match Wednesday had to win to avoid relegation to Division Three. They won the match 1-0. Henderson left Wednesday at the end of that season and went to play for Hong Kong Rangers. He spent three years in the colony and captained the Hong Kong League XI (a team made up of foreign professionals plying their trade in Hong Kong) before returning to Scotland for a final season with Airdrieonians.

After professional football

Today Willie Henderson runs a hotel in Broxburn. He is also involved with Rangers hospitality on matchdays at Ibrox. He is also seen occasionally on the club's TV station 'Rangers TV'. He is happily married and has 4 children: Scott, Gary, Natalie & Michelle, a former runner for Scotland, with "the best legs in the business."

References

* [http://scotlandonsunday.scotsman.com/sport.cfm?id=645562006 Scotland on Sunday Interview: April 2006]
* [http://www.adrianbullock.com/swfc/stats/play0246.htm Sheffield Wednesday Archive]