William Houliston (4 April 1921 – 10 February 1999) was a Scottish footballer who played for Crichton, Queen of the South, Berwick Rangers, Third Lanark and the Scotland national team.
Houliston was born in Maxwelltown, at Westpark Cottages, where he lived for a short while before his family moved to a house at the Crichton in Dumfries.
[1] In early 1948, Celtic offered a big fee to take him to Parkhead but Houliston was happy to stay with Queens.
Playing beside George Young, Sammy Cox, Torry Gillick, Willie Ormond and Gordon Smith, Houliston scored twice in the 3–0 victory.
For the next goal Houliston passed the ball wide to Willie Waddell and kept moving goalwards, then met the winger's cross with a bullet header to complete the comeback.
His robust style of play discomforted the English defenders, attracting boos from the home fans and post-match criticism from the local press.
[6] However a serious ankle injury brought Houlston's involvement in the tour to a premature end; he journeyed home on the RMS Queen Mary without his teammates to have an operation.
[1] In all, he collected nine caps at different levels and never played in a losing Scotland side;[1] he is the only serving Queen of the South player to have been selected for full international duty.
[1] Houliston became a director at Queen of the South in 1957 and was later chairman for several years, winning promotion to Division One with the early 1960s team of player manager George Farm, Neil Martin, Ernie Hannigan and the now veteran Jim Patterson.