McMorran: Edward James (Eddie)

1949-1950 (Player Details)

Inside Forward

Born: Larne: 02-09-1923

Debut: v Sheffield Wednesday (h): 22-01-1949

5’11 1/2” 13st (1949)

One time Blacksmith, McMorran forged a top-class football career, including a short stay at Elland Road. He scored twice in two appearances for the Ireland Youth team in 1937 and won Irish School honours when at Larne School, when he played against Wales in 1938. He later playing for Ballyclare Comrades, Linfield Swifts and Larne Olympic. A star at intermediate level for a number of seasons, McMorran made the breakthrough to senior football with Belfast Celtic. A blacksmith by trade, McMorran was a strapping centre-forward, using his strength to great effect. In the 1946/47 season he scored well over fifty goals, including thirty in twenty-four Regional League games, as Celtic claimed the League title, Irish Cup and Gold Cup. He was rewarded for his fine form with an Ireland cap against England on 28th September 1946 in a 2-7 drubbing at Windsor Park, but he relished the toe-to-toe shoulder charging with Frank Swift which was a feature of that game between two well matched "big men". He also gained Inter-League caps against the Football League, at Goodison Park, Liverpool on 19th February 1947, scoring in a 2-4 defeat, League of Ireland in a 2-2 draw at Dalymount Park, on 17th March 1947, when he was again on the scoresheet, and against the Scottish League at Windsor Park on 30th April 1947 in a 4-7 defeat in which he again found the net. He had lost much of his active years to the Second World War and he was twenty-four when Manchester City signed him for £7,000 in July 1947. He made a scoring debut for City, in a 4-3 win over Wolverhampton Wanderers at Maine Road, on 23rd August 1947. However he had to wait until the fifth game, a 3-0 hopme win over Sunderland on 6th September, before he could double his tally. His third came in the eighth game in a 3-2 home win over Derby County on 17th September 1947. After a spell on the sidelines, he returned to the team scoring in a 4-0 home win over Charlton Athletic on 15th November 1947 and again two weeks later in a 2-0 home win over Liverpool. He added another in a 4-3 home win over Sheffield United on 13th December, but had to wait until the 3-1 home win over Grimsby Town on 31st January 1948, when he scored a brace, before being sidelined once more, but making a scoring comeback in a 2-0 home win over Middlesbrough on 27th March 1948. He finally scored his first goal away from Maine Road when he got the only goal of the game against Charlton Athletic at the Valley on 3rd April 1948 for his tenth and final goal of the season in twenty-nine League appearances. He also made three appearances in the F.A. Cup, without scoring. He started as City's Centre Forward for the 1948-49 season on 21st August 1948 at Turf Moor against Burnley, but did not score as City lost 0-1 but four days later he did score in City's 3-2 home win over Preston North End His next appearance was at St Andrew's in a 1-4 loss to Birmingham City, on 15th September 1949, before his final game, three days later, in a 1-1 home draw with Portsmouth in which he scored his final goal for City. McMorran’s goal return, while respectable, was not quite what was hoped for. His career had seemed to lose its way and he joined Leeds in January 1949, for £10,000, after a year-and-a-half at Maine Road. He made thirty-three League appearances at Maine Road and scored twelve League goals, as well as making three appearances in the F.A. Cup, without scoring. It was hoped that his goalscoring abilities would bring top-flight football back to Elland Road, but once again he failed to shine as Leeds wallowed in mid-table. Again he could not reproduce the great form he had shown in Ireland and a £10,000 transfer took him to Barnsley in July 1950. At Oakwell he met with some success and scored thirty-two times in one hundred and four League appearances. Although his scoring feats didn’t hit the levels he had attained with Celtic, McMorran established himself as a popularplayer at Oakwell. He also regained his place in the Ireland team for the first time in four years, marking his return with a goal against England. He remained Ireland’s first choice number nine for the following three years. He found the net in the seventieth minute of a 1-4 loss to England at Windsor Park on 7th October 1950 and added caps against Scotland in a 1-6 loss at Hampden Park on 1st November 1950 and a 1-2 loss to Wales at Windsor Park, Belfast, on 7th March 1951. In the 1951-52 season there were three more as Ireland went down 0-3 at Windsor Park on 6th October 1951, 0-2 to England at Villa Park, Birmingham on 14th November 1951 and 0-3 to Wales at the Vetch Field Swansea on 19th March 1952. He took his Irish Cap tally, while with Barnsley, to nine with two in the Home Championships with draws with first England, 2-2 at Winsor Park on 4th October 1952, and then 1-1 with Scotland at Hampden Park on 5th November 1952, before being beaten, six days later, 1-3 by France, at the Stade de Colombes, Paris. Mid-way through the 1952-53 season, with Barnsley struggling at the foot of the table, Peter Doherty stepped in to take McMorran to Doncaster Rovers. He signed for Doncaster for £8,000 in February 1953. An established Division Two side, Doncaster, with McMorran the star, consistently punched above their weight in the knock-out competitions. In 1954 they embarked on an FA Cup run to the Fifth Round for the first time, dispatching big-spending Sunderland along the way, McMorran scoring twice in a 2-0 win. They repeated their FA Cup heroics in the next season, dispatching Aston Villa in an epic series of matches. At Belle View he made one hundred and twenty-eight League appearances and scored thirty-two goals. By the time he moved to Crewe Alexandra in November 1957 McMorran had won his fifteenth and final full cap. He had scored twice in the third Home Championship fixture of the 1952-53 season as Northern Ireland went down 2-3 to Wales at Windsor Park ob 15th April 1953 and then He and Leeds player Jim McCabe went on the Northern Ireland All-Stars tour of Canada in the close season from 14th May to 16th June 1953. The games did not count as full caps but McMorran was amongst the goals as they won six and lost four of the games played. He got four in a 10-0 win over Saskatchewan at Moose Jaw on 25th May 1953, three more in a 9-1 win over Alberta at Edmonton on 8th June 1953, and Ireland's only goals as they went down to Liverpool 1-3 in Toronto on 13th June and 1-4 to Berne Young Boys in Montreal four days later. His International career resumed on 11th November 1953 when he scored with a flying header in the fifty-third minute of a 1-3 defeat by England at Goodison Park, Liverpool, in a Home Championship game which doubled as a World Cup Qualifier. It was his fourth and final International goal. He did represent an All Ireland XI at Dalymount Park in the An Tostal Festival on 9th May 1955 against an England International XI and he scored twice in a 5-6 defeat. His thirteenth Irish Cap came in the Home Championship on 11th April 1956 in a 1-1 draw with Wales and Ninian Park, Cardiff, and he won his final two caps in the World Cup qualifiers against Italy and Portugal. On 25th April 1957 they went down 0-1 to Italy at Stadio Olimpico, Rome, home of AS Roma, but his International career finished on a winning note as Northern Ireland beat Portugal 3-0 at Windsor Park, Belfast, on 1st May 1957 and qualified for the finals. By the time of the Finals in Sweden he had left League football behind, settling in Yorkshire. He scored six goals in twenty-four League appearances at Gresty Road. He joined Frickley Colliery in the summer of 1958 and was appointed coach to Dodsworth Miners’ Welfare in August 1960. Later McMorran returned to his native Larne where he passed away, on 27th January 1984, aged sixty.