Debut:
02/03/1897 v Darwen (Bank Street) 3-1 (League Division Two)
Farewell:
Transferred to Bolton Wanderers, 03/1903, £
Passed Away:
05/06/1939
Biography
Although he served the club assiduously for nearly seven seasons, Billy Morgan inadvertently goes down as a symbol of the drop in quality in Newton Heath's ranks in the last part of its existence. After arriving from local side Horwich in January 1897, he could hardly gain a foothold in the team for, a half-back by trade, he was shunted behind the likes of McNaught, Cartwright, Jenkyns and Draycott.
Morgan did make his debut on March 2nd, 1897 (against Darwen), but he only played 11 league games in a year and a half. In fact, he had more joy moonlighting at inside-right, such as the day he banged a hat-trick past Wigan County in the Lancashire Cup. In the wake of McNaught's migration to Tottenham in 1898, however, the Heathen management deemed Billy as the readymade replacement.
The 5'9" half-back thus played 31 games in all competition in 1898-99, followed by 38, 43 and 41 in the next three campaigns. This included participating in Heath's last ever league fixture (in April 1902) and earning a Manchester Senior Cup winners' medal. Along the way, for reasons that have never been made clear, he curiously acquired the nickname "the india-rubber doll"!
When Heath became Manchester United, Morgan was initially retained by the new entity, and he even played in the very first league game under the new name. A dozen games later, though, he was given a free transfer to Bolton Wanderers in March 1903 when John Fitchett arrived as a replacement from Southampton. Alas, this proved a step too high for Billy, who only played thrice for the Trotters.
In the 1903 close season, he found his level at Watford... perfectly: Morgan was ever-present in the team that won the 1903-04 Southern League title, impressively scoring 9 goals in 20 games, largely thanks to a new found aptitude for converting penalties.
Billy was soon back in the Football League, scoring 12 goals in 73 games for Leicester Fosse from his debut on September 3rd, 1904, till his farewell on April 13th, 1906. This was followed by a season with New Brompton (now Gillingham) before he retired to work as a cleaner, though he did make a brief return to the game in September 1910 with Manchester Federation side, Newton Heath Athletic (no relation to his previous employers).
During the Great War, Morgan served with the 20th Service Battalion, Manchester Regiment. That did not last long, mind. He was discharged in March 1915 and deemed "unlikely to become an efficient soldier" after injuring himself in a football match on February 28th! Biography kindly provided by Charbel Boujaoude.
