William Steel (1 May 1923 – 13 May 1982) was a Scottish professional footballer who played for St Mirren, Morton, Derby County, Dundee and the Scotland national team.

One of Scotland's greatest inside forwards, Billy Steel combined a brilliant footballing brain with a busy work ethic and explosive shot.

Leicester City manager Frank Womack was determined to get his man halfway through the season and took him on to the Filbert Street ground staff at the end of 1938; things did not work out as the boss was sacked and nobody remembered to renew his contract.

The team "visited" France, the Netherlands, Poland, Switzerland, the Channel Islands and Germany, and Steel played along with such notables as Leslie Compton, Eddie Hapgood, and Matt Busby.

He was further disliked for his "moonlighting" (though in the days of the maximum wage for footballers he could hardly be blamed); he received payments for articles that he wrote for several newspapers, enabling him to have a more luxurious life style than his teammates.

[10] Billy Steel had springs for muscles, a choirboy's face that masked a devouring, often ruthless determination to achieve football perfection, a caustic tongue that frequently angered team-mates more bitterly than opponents, and a style and ability that, in this modern age, would have the wealthy clubs of Europe bidding frantically for his transfer.

There was nothing svelte about Steel: he exuded vitality, he had the killer instinct of a boxing champion, he was the type of aggressive attacker who was so keen to win that he would have sworn at his best friend if he felt he hadn't been pulling his weight.