page_title: William Townley
section_title: Playing career
hierarchical_section_title: William Townley / Playing career
caption_attribution_description: William Townley - 1890
context_page_description: William James Townley was an English football player and coach.
  He scored the first hat-trick in the history of the FA Cup final, but his lasting legacy is defined as an important pioneer of the game in Germany, leading Karlsruher FV and SpVgg Fürth to three German championships as a coach.
context_section_description: Townley's career as a player began with Blackburn Swifts F.C., where he played for one season. He than joined Blackburn Olympic for two seasons. His playing position at Swifts and Olympic was centre-forward. He joined Blackburn Rovers in 1886 and switched to the left winger spot. Townleys technique to deter defending full-backs was to throw his arms up in the air, thus startling his opponent; Townley swept past to make an attack.
  On 15 September 1888, Townley, playing as a winger, made his league debut at Leamington Road, then home of Blackburn Rovers, against Accrington. The match ended as a 5–5 draw, with Townley scoring the second and fourth goals for the Blackburn Rovers and becoming the teams top scorer temporarily.
  In the 1888–89 season, Townley played 19 league matches and scored eight league goals. As a winger, he played in a midfield that achieved big (three league goals or more) league wins on five separate occasions. In scoring eight league goals Townley scored two-in-a-match twice. He assisted Blackburn Rovers to win the FA Cup with the club in 1890 and 1891. In the first of these title appearances against The Wednesday, the outside left made history by contributing three goals in a 6–1 victory, earning the distinction of becoming the first player to score a hat-trick in an FA Cup final. He scored another goal in the successful defence of the title as the Rovers overcame Notts County 3–1 the following year. Townley's total of four goals in FA Cup finals has to date only been bettered once, by Liverpool's Ian Rush, who scored five goals in three finals appearances in the 1980s.
  Townley was capped twice for England, in 1889 and 1890, scoring two goals in the second of those matches, which was a 9–1 victory over Ireland. In 1894 he moved to Darwen and played there for six years before joining Manchester City, where his playing career ended after he suffered a serious head injury.
caption: Townley in 1890
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