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, icluding a short stay at Elland Road. He won Irish School honours when at Larne School, 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. 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 and Inter-League caps against the Football League and League of Ireland (both games in which he scored). A blacksmith by trade, McMorran was a strapping centre-forward, using his strength to great effect. He scored twice in two appearances for the Ireland Youth team in 1937. 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. McMorran’s goal return, while respectable, was not quite what was hoped for. His career had seemed to lose its way and after a year-and-a-half at Maine Road he joined Leeds in January 1949. He made thirty-three League appearances at Maine Road and scored twelve goals. 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 popular player 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. 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 won his final two caps in World Cup qualifiers against Italy and Portugal. 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 scored four times for Ireland including one against England at Wembley in the World Cup Qualifying matches in November 1953. 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 January1984, aged sixty.