Willie Gildea
Scottish footballer (1888-?)
William Franklyn Gildea (October 1884 – 1949) was a Scottish footballer who played as a centre half. He played for Falkirk in the Scottish League, for Bradford City and Birmingham in the English Football League, and for Belfast Celtic in the Irish League.
Life and career
Gildea was born in October 1884 in Broxburn, in what was then Linlithgowshire. He had two brothers, Peter and Harry, who also became professional footballers.
Gildea played at centre half for Lochgelly St Patrick's. After he "performed fairly well" as a triallist in a Scottish Union match in February 1909, he signed for Falkirk, and was retained for the following season. Mainly a reserve player, he came into the league side only once, on 29 January 1910 at home to Heart of Midlothian, when captain John Anderson was unfit. He was transfer-listed at the end of the season, and in August 1910, he followed team-mate Archie Devine to English First Division club Bradford City.
Unlike Devine, Gildea had to wait for his debut. He played reserve-team football for his first few months, until, in February 1911, Bradford City completed his transfer, for a fee of £60, and he became eligible for the first team.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Willie Gildea” as scottish footballer (1888-?). Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
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The subject matters to the people & ideas register because the source frames it as scottish footballer (1888-?). Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
The entry’s evidential value lies in the named roles, institutions and publications that can be tested against primary documentation. The source revision retrieved here is dated May 6, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q8021530. None of the 1 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1884, 1949, 1909 and 1910.
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This entry incorporates text from “Willie Gildea” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.