Willie Turner, of whom there is no known picture, would play for Scotland twice, once in 1885 and again in 1886. And, as a forward, he did so whilst playing for the comparatively junior Pollokshields Utd. However, he was not the first cap from the club. That had been the winger, Frank Shaw, a season earlier. Shaw had been born in Tradeston in 1864. Turner was also born that same year and in the neighbouring Gorbals. His father was a master-butcher but he would die in 1867, his wife, William's mother, carrying on the business and seemingly very successfully. By 1881 the family had clearly moved on, both geographically and socially. It was living in Kinning Park, in Strathbungo between Queen's Park and Pollokshields itself. William's eldest brother, James, was a stockbroker, his elder brother, Joseph, was a clerk, as was William himself.   

At school at Glasgow Academy Turner is said to have played rugby but, perhaps with the sheer proximity of football close to home, he swapped codes and with obvious and rapid success. His first cap came at the age of just twenty-one. Yet it was not to continue. By twenty-three he had given up the game to concentrate on business. He would, still living at home in 1891, become initially a drinks-salesman and a decade later be recorded as a distiller. And in the meantime he had married, to Margaret Ethel Shearer in 1895 and two children, a boy and the a girl, followed.