William Townley

 

William signed for Darwen in July 1894, and caused great excitment amongst the Darwen Football public. William had played as a centre forward with Blackburn Olympic and Blackburn Rovers, it was with the Rovers that William would write his name into the record books as the first player to score a hat-trick in a FA Cup final, his three goals in the FA cup final of 1890 helped the Rovers to victory over Sheffield Wednesday 6-1, a year later he again scored in the final for the Rovers against Notts County who they beat 3-1. To this day only Ian Rush of Liverpool has scored as many FA cup final goals (4) but Ian did this in three finals. In his first season with Darwen William ended up top scorerer level with Maxwell on 12 goals,
In all William played for two seasons with the Salmoners before moving to Manchester City and later Coaching abroad.

 

Acknowledgements for the history in this section are made to :  Darwen RBL -- who originally published this page in 2002