But in truth he was brought up, his father transferred, in Cambuslang, there learning his football starting with the local Rangers club. However, at eighteen he was signed by Middlesbrough, just as in 1914 War was about to break out and, when it did he enlisted, recorded as an Electrical Linesman, was badly wounded in the left arm, losing the use of it and his hand and released from duty. 

Yet the arm did not seem to disrupt his football. During the war years he was to play for several clubs, wanted at the hostilities to remain in Scotland but found his English club unwilling to release, at which point he did something he was to do not just once but twice. In this case he stepped outwith both the Scottish and English League systems by joining Dunfermline for two seasons in the briefly active Central League. And, perhaps to his surprise it made no difference to his international selection, whilst giving time for Middlesbrough eventually to get its house in order and after two more seasons at Ayresome Park amicably release him.      

It also allowed him in 1922 to be married, in Glasgow but to a Middlesbrough girl, Eleanor Crawford, with whom he was to have two sons, both born on Tees-side. His club even played a benefit for the couple before they moved south to London, he to Chelsea. And there he was to remain for eight seasons until at the age of thirty-five a final one in the English game at Queen's Park Rangers and before a wee foreign adventure. From particularly 1931 the Chelsea dressing room had not been happy. The argument was essentially over money, complicated by the English clubs refusal to release non-English players for international duty and therefore extra income, with the captain, Alex Jackson, and the young Alex Cheyne in essence eventually frozen out but with their League registrations retained. It meant they could not play anywhere in the British top-flight but did both find employment in emerging French football, Wilson joining them for two years as player-manager of Nimes until matters were smoothed and he and Cheyne chose to return.

Andy Wilson would then go on to manage at Clacton and Walsall before the Second War and Gravesend and Northfleet after it as well as coaching at Stamford Bridge. And it would be close to the ground that staying on the Fulham Road Andy would pass away in 1973 aged seventy-seven survived by Eleanor and buried in Putney Vale Cemetery.