However, within a year of Maley's birth his father had obtained an honourable discharge from the army and moved his family to Cathcart, south of Glasgow, specifically Argyle Place in New Cathcart, between Muirend and Marylee. There he worked as a drill-sergeant and it was here too that Willie and his siblings grew up, he leaving school at 13 and first working at the nearby Netherlee dye-works. As a junior he was more an athlete than a footballer. But he played for local Cathcart Hazelbank, then briefly following his elder brother, Tom, to Third Lanark before Celtic in the form of Brother Walfrid himself and John Glass came a-calling. In fact the pair had actually come looking for Tom, who was out with his wife-to-be, but came away with Willie instead. 

With Celtic as a player, at half-back, from 1888 to 1897 and seventy-odd appearances Willie Maley was to take the Scottish First Division in 1893, 1894 and 1896, lose the Scottish Cup Final in 1889, 1893 and 1894, a match refereed by fellow Cathcart-resident, Charles Campbell, and win it in 1892. But in 1897 and now a clerk he stepped back and up, being appointed by the Board, aged just twenty-nine, the club's first Secretary-Manager, as such taking the Championship in his first full season. It was to be the first of thirty major trophies, sixteen Leagues and fourteen Cups. To do so he ended the policy of buying in talent and instead brought it through with a junior and youth policy, particularly in the early years, building a series of highly successful young teams that matured on.