After four seasons in the Scottish First Division with Partick Thistle, Bill Gray joined Southampton.

With his accurate passing game, he promptly made the left-half position his own.

Indeed, he had missed but three Southern League games when, in March 1907, he was suspended sine die, together with Alex Glen and Robert McLean, for drunken misconduct. So he returned to Scotland and had two more seasons at Partick. He then went home to Inverness, where he combined playing for the local Thistle – eventually being re-instated as an amateur – with working on the railways. He enlisted in the 4th Battalion, Seaforth Highlanders, in September 1915. He was wounded in action, the following year, in the Battle of Ancre, on the Somme. He died of his wounds and is buried at Abbeville Cemetery.