Willie Pettigrew

Willie Pettigrew
Personal information
Full name William Pettigrew
Date of birth (1953-10-02) 2 October 1953
Place of birth Motherwell, Scotland
Height 5 ft 11 in (1.80 m)
Playing position Striker
Youth career
1970–1971 Hibernian
1971–1972 East Kilbride Thistle
Senior career*
Years Team Apps (Gls)
1972–1979 Motherwell[1] 146 (80)
1979–1981 Dundee United[1] 57 (21)
1981–1984 Hearts[1] 68 (26)
1984–1985 Morton[1] 33 (10)
1985–1986 Hamilton Academical[1] 3 (0)
Total 307 (137)
National team
1976–1977 Scotland[2] 5 (2)
1978 Scottish League XI[3] 2 (1)

* Senior club appearances and goals counted for the domestic league only.

† Appearances (goals)

William "Willie" Pettigrew (born 2 October 1953) is a Scottish former footballer, who played as a striker for Motherwell, Dundee United, Hearts, Morton and Hamilton Academical. Pettigrew also represented Scotland and the Scottish League XI.

Early career

Pettigrew started his career with Hibernian but left Easter Road for junior side East Kilbride Thistle after failing to make a first-team breakthrough.

Motherwell and Scotland

He joined Motherwell in 1972, enjoying his most prolific spell averaging better than a goal every 2 league games. He ended the 1975/76 season as the highest scorer in Scotland's top division at the age of 22. He repeated the feat when two years older in 1978.

It was at Motherwell that he won five caps for Scotland, 4 in 1976 and 1 in 1977. Scotland won all five games, with Pettigrew scoring a goal in each of his first two appearances. He also played in two games for the Scottish Football League XI in 1978 that both ended in 1-1 draws, giving Pettigrew an unbeatean career as an internationalist of seven games. He scored the Scottish League goal in the second of those two games. Having debuted for Scotland aged 22, his last full cap was aged 23 and his international career at all levels was over aged 25.

Dundee United

In 1979, Dundee United purchased Pettigrew for £100,000 where he played victoriously in the 1979 Scottish League Cup Final scoring two goals in a 3–0 replay win against Aberdeen. He played in the winning 1980 Scottish League Cup Final team the year after but this time the goals were scored by the two strikers who were the club's first choice front pair for the next handful of seasons, Paul Sturrock and Davie Dodds.

Hearts, Morton and Hamilton

In 1981 for a £120,000 fee he next moved to Heart of Midlothian achieving promotion to the top tier at the end of his second season there.

He moved to Greenock Morton in 1984 for one season.

He finished off his playing days the following season with a small number of games with Hamilton Academical.

Honours

Dundee United
Heart of Midlothian

References

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