Willie Howden was a goalkeeper, described as both dependable and daring, an interesting combination, whose had his most stable period in the game in the nine seasons he spent at Partick Thistle between 1901 and 1908 and again from 1909 to 1911. It was during that first period that he in 1905 won a single cap, a clean-sheet against Ireland. 

Howden was born in Barrhead in 1879. His father, from Berwickshire, is recorded as both a Spirit Dealer cum Sailmaker, another combination of interest. His mother came from tenant-farming stock. She was born in Paisley but her parents farmed by Kirkintilloch, for it was there with his grandparents that Willie was staying at age ten. But the family then seems to have moved to settled in Plantation in Glasgow, which would explain starting in junior football with Oatlands team, Benburb, which had reformed in 1895, Willie joining at about that time, and disbanded once more in 1898, by which time he had moved on to nearby Rutherglen Glencairn.

He in 1899 and aged not quite twenty then signed by Rangers but only as back-up for Matt Dickie. In two seasons he played but one league match before moving on, his amateur status restored as he otherwise worked as a joiner. It was a step down. Partick were already relegated from the First to the Second Division, however, with him now between the sticks, it bounced right back, remaining mid-table for the duration of his first stay. 

And it was during this period that he had married, in 1904, in Clackmannan, to Hamilton-born Charlotte Cunningham, after which a daughter was soon born in Largs but the couple returned to Glasgow and for several years settled there in the house they shared with his now-widowed mother, his youngest brother and his family.