Imrie's father was a local man and coal miner, born just up the coast in Crail. Bill's mother came from Linlithgow. And it may have been that Bill Bill too had briefly worked in the pit until at nineteen he was signed by St. Johnstone, from the Kirkcaldy colliery junior team, Dunniker. And he would remain at then  Muirton for two seasons,, captaining the side, until signed in 1929, aged still only twenty-one, by English First Division Blackburn, from where he would almost immediately return to marry, in Edinburgh, Methil-girl, Jessie Tulloch, with whom he was to have three Buckhaven-born children.  

The Rovers was a club that at the time was towards the top of mid-table and over the five seasons he was there it was to move down and then back up the standings without but ever quite hitting the heights. But it is perhaps a measure of his importance to the team, again captaining, that, within two seasons of him in 1934 and still only twenty-six being somewhat bizarrely sold it, was relegated.