In the meantime, whilst his early years were spent in Dennistoun, by his teens the family had moved south of the Clyde to Langside, and then to Queen's Park with the club obviously nearby. And it was to there and that part of Glasgow's suburbs that he returned in 1920 after service in the Royal Navy, changed profession to Distiller's Clerk and began to establish himself both of and on the pitch. It was also from there that in 1927 he married, his wife Marion James. They were to have a daughter and a son but in 1934 Marion died and Willie was left alone to raise what were still young children. Their girl was seven, their son five. 

Perhaps it had been a decline in Marion's health that in 1932 persuaded Willie to retire from the football-field, albeit that he was already thirty-four. However, he remained close to the club, serving as a committee member and in 1939 he was elected President for two years. By then the children were growing up, the elder already in her teens, and in 1942 he remarried.