bobpaisley.com - Billy Liddell: Part Two, by Wooltonian

The Billy Liddell Story
Part Two

by Wooltonian

The present generation of 30 to 40 year olds out there will no doubt one day reminisce themselves about King Kenny to their grandkids and rightly so, Kenny was the most outstanding talent of his time and deserves all the plaudits they will give him. Rushie will also have his apostles and his goals record I believe will never be beaten, that's right never ! Our present star Michael Owen is a great player, but he won't break the record that Rush set.

So here goes.

Indulge me for a while and try and imagine with this Old Fogey if our greatest player Billy Liddell had been born in 1981 and had been blessed with half the footballing talent that those that saw him play knew he had.

He would now once again be a strapping 21 year old and just beginning his career. He'd have just signed a lucrative 5 year contract and would be a millionaire in the making. Liverpool and Scotland would be boasting a world class footballer, something Scotland would die for at the moment. The Kop would drool over his every touch and we would have a winger who was likely to score 20 goals a season. "3 goal a season" Damien Duff eat your heart out, this new winger can really play and has a ferocious shot in both boots. His popularity would not only rival that of Robbie Fowler and Michael Owen, it would dwarf it. The club shop would do a roaring trade in replica shirts emblazoned 'LIDDELL 11'. Funny really as Liddell played most of his games without a number.

The media would no doubt be full of speculation of the possibility of Ł35 million swoops from all the top European clubs, including the likes of Juventus, Inter or AC Milan, Real Madrid or Barcelona. But there would be no chance of Gerard Houllier parting with the jewel in the Anfield crown. Imagine as well a Liverpool attack boasting Liddell, Heskey, Baros, Owen and Diouf ! I know it sounds daft, but in those days 2 wingers, 2 Insides and a Centre forward was the norm.

We would be the scourge of the Premiership and the giants of Europe would bend at the knee in his presence, but Billy Liddell would have probably hated it all as well, because he was a very modest man. He was above all the stuff and nonsense of the so called great players of today, Yes, there was only one Billy Liddell.

"One Billy Liddell, there's only one Billy Liddell,
"One Billy Liddell, there's only one Billy Liddell"

"He gets the ball, he scores a goal, Billy, Billy Liddell.

"I'd walk a million miles for one of your goals, oh BILLY"

"Left foot Goal, Right foot Goal, up with his head and its another Goal".

Hat-tick king Liddell strikes again. Billy strikes more often than the miners, Fords and Standards does together.

OK dream over, Billy came from a different era, but I still doubt he would have been seen celebrating a goal by running to the corner flag or worse diving along the floor. 'sniffing' the touch line ? I think not. Also despite his God given talent he would never earn more than the majority of his team-mates of the forties and fifties. His career came to a finish with players earning around twenty quid a week, plus a few extra pound notes if they won and not the Ł40,000 a week earned today. Fair enough, back in the fifties that sort of money would have meant a reasonable standard of living, but it was hardly the sort of money that would allow a footballer to retire once he turned thirty, let alone drive around in custom made cars. You were more likely to see Billy riding a bike!

Today we fans often get criticised for daring to criticise the multi millionaires that are supposed to be entertaining us. The players did not create the ever increasing wage bill, rather it was directors who offered the money and lengthy contracts. So all this furore about asking players to take a cut should, well first tell their directors to look at their own wages and then beggar off. Following the Treble year, the Kopites were a happy bunch and so, no doubt, were all the players as their bank balances increased by a few more noughts. Yet even last season we had players doing more or less nothing to earn their money, ie sitting on the sick list (sorry Jamie Redknapp Lar, I couldn't help it) whilst throughout the nightmare nineties we had players earning a mere ten grand a week complaining that they were underpaid.

In Billy's day fans would vent their feelings, probably far more strongly than they do today, if they thought that someone wasn't pulling their weight, but even during the worst of times nobody could ever level that charge against Billy Liddell and the Famous Kop never booed the team off the pitch. No manager ever had to tell Billy Liddell to go out and do his best because Billy never gave anything less than his best in every game he played and he played EVERY week.

I argue with mates regularly about the pampered and over protected players of today. I am more of a cynic now than I ever was. People try and tell me how different the game is now and I have to agree that it has changed. But Billy Liddell never had the benefit of being part of a thirty-man squad. The manager couldn't rotate the team then and anyway if any of them had been brave enough to drop Billy Liddell the walls of the Kop would have come tumbling down around their ears. The game in the fifties might have been different but the likes of Billy Liddell would face uncompromising defenders week in week out and those defenders would have one thing on their mind and that would be to kick Billy Liddell as hard and as often as they could. Did Billy roll around the pitch like he'd been shot ? Of course not, he just picked himself up and carried on. If someone kicked him on the right leg, he'd start shooting with his left, if someone kicked him in the left leg, he'd just shoot with his right.

Many defenders thought it wise to kick him in both legs, what was Billy's answer ? Yes, you're right, he'd head the ball home from anywhere in the area. Can you think of any attacker now who can boast the same ? Owen is a world class striker, there is no doubt in my mind, but I aint kidding when I say me Mam could kick a better ball with her left peg than Mikey. Heskey's talent of playing in a variety of roles and trying his best wherever he plays is admirable, but the chances of him scoring as regularly as Billy did is about as likely as the Mersey Tunnel stopping the toll (anyone old enough will remember it was only going to be tolled for the first year ?).

Fowler was the next hero of mine after King Kenny hung up his boots, and I think his stance on the dockers strike earned him much deserved popularity, but his off the field activities often got him into trouble. Billy on the other hand spent a lot of his time helping boys clubs and never made the headlines unless it was refering to a game. Why ? Well he didn't drink for a start. It also wasn't the done thing to go to a nightclub in Chester and show yer ARSEnal like another favourite player of mine. Here's where someone will pick holes in this, I dont think Billy was ever booked, let alone SENT OFF and as for getting locked up by the local plod, Billy never gave anyone the opportunity or the reason.

If players think that facing the likes of some of todays hard men is a chore they should think themselves lucky because in Billy's day they would come up against some real hard nuts, the sort that would have made Tommy Smith think twice. Billy would be out there facing the likes of Stan Milburn, Frank Mountford, Eddie Clamp, Maurice Setters, Alf Ramsey and a few others, and if you haven't heard of them, ask yer Dad or Granddad. Yet despite knowing that a kicking awaited him, you'd never question the desire or commitment of Billy Liddell.

In the fifties Billy Liddell was in an elite group of players. A group that included the likes of Stan Matthews, Tom Finney and the late great Duncan Edwards. I've written before about Duncan as my old fellah still goes on about what a talent he was. OK he played for the Mancs, but according to my Dad there had never been the likes of Duncan in his time. Hence references to Stevie G being Edwards-like is very high praise indeed. Stanley was a wizzard on the wing also according to the old fellah, but very one footed and scored goals only rarely. I believe Stanley only got more praise than Billy because he was English.

These were the players that everyone wanted to see play. Although Liverpool spent a good part of that decade in the second division the fans of our rivals loved it when Liverpool were due to pay a call. So did their club's chairman and treasurer because they knew that if Billy Liddell was in the Liverpool line-up then a few extra thousand would be added to the gate! Dads would take misty-eyed sons to games and those lads would soon tell their schoolmates, "I've seen Billy Liddell" play. The reason being was that fans of teams like Bristol Rovers, Doncaster Rovers, Grimsby or Leyton Orient didn't get too many opportunities of seeing a genuine world class player gracing their grounds. In fact to be honest in the fifties world class players weren't in great abundance anywhere on these shores, but Liverpool definitely had one.

I was a bit young to go to Anfield when Billy played, therefore never got the opportunity to watch him peel an orange with either foot (yes he was that good), but my one opportunity came at Holly Park, Garston (South Liverpool FC). Billy may have been past his sell by date, but the match will always remain special to me. It was the Billy Liddell International All Stars vs Merseyside Select XI. I'll never forget that match and the chance to see Billy play but had no momento of the game when recently, with the help of a mate Andy Roper, I was able to get hold of the programme from that match for just Ł6. Yes six quid! I dare not tell you how much I would have been prepared to go, you really will think I'd lost me marbles. (Special thanks once again to Andy - cheers la).

Given the history of the club for much of the second half of the twentieth century it is hard to understand that for so much of an era one man carried the hopes of the fans. But as I've said before these were the LIDDELL days and we were proud at the time to call our team LIDDELLPOOL. You see as the club slid from the level of Championship Winners to Championship contenders and Cup Finalists to having what many fans believe was our worst ever team there was only one ray of hope and that was Billy Liddell.

Once the rot had set in the decline was swift and as the press reports of the time would tell you only Billy Liddell kept the team afloat. Yes I know you've heard it all before, but you're going to hear it again and again until my fingers bleed. There was a time when one man did make a team and when one man was bigger than the club. When the inevitable relegation came there wasn't any transfer demand from Billy Liddell, there was just a determination to restore pride and status to a fallen club and Billy was determined to play his part.

He showed a LOYALTY to Liverpool unlike any player had ever done and in todays mercenary climate of playing for whoever pays the highest, Billy deserves a lot of respect and that is why so many of the older fans still sing his praises. On the other hand the club would never have dared sell him anyway because it would have led to a rebellion in the Red parts of the city and that is fact. Yet thinking back had Liverpool been brave enough and daft enough to have done just that, the money, even back then that a transfer would have commanded, would have been enough to have brought in at least three or four new players. However, such was the status and standing of Billy Liddell the idea would never have been even considered.

In September 1959 'King Billy' was presented on Sportsview with a cheque for Ł2,000 to mark his twenty years with the club. Yes, you're right Ł100 a season doesn't seem alot. However, It was a measure of his standing in the game that the BBC deemed it a worthy enough event to show on what was then Prime Time TV. Other players received awards like this, but they didn't televise them. They broke new ground that night did the BBC, and it was all for Billy Liddell. And don't forget Billy wasn't playing for one of the nations top sides at the time, he was playing for a second division team called Liverpool.

Shortly after this Billy broke the Club appearance record and was awarded a drinks cabinet, yes, a drinks cabinet. Of course the funny thing was Billy was a teetotaller and you've got to think it was another Billy's sense of humour that picked the present. I can hear Shanks now, make sure its got Scotch in it Billy when I come round with Nessie and the kids.

The only time I ever saw Billy Liddell at Anfield was when he strode onto the pitch at the 'Kops Last Stand.' I was in tears, I really wish I could have seen him play when he was in his prime. I cried twice that night, anyone who could hold the tears back, when Nessie came on the pitch to roars from the Kop of "Shankly, Shankly" mustn't have had a heart. I wonder what he and the team would have achieved had he played for Shankly? I also wonder what he and the team would have achieved had he played for Paisley? I know it would have been hard to improve on Bob's record, but when Billy and Bob played together on the left for Liverpool they seemed to have a telepathic understanding.

We watch football now in an age where the also rans of the game get paid a king's ransom. We watch as other clubs honour their greats. Its a real sickener to me to see Denis Law honoured at Man Utd, after all he was the one who scored the goal that put the Mancs in Div 2 not so long back and they still honoured him !

None of them will ever be able to hold a candle to the man they called 'King Billy' and a smaller section referred to him as "William the Conquerer". God Bless you Billy, you will always have pride of place in our house mate, and I'm sure others who can remember your God given talent will always have a special place in their hearts.

One Footed Wonders of Today beware

Wooltonian

The Billy Liddell Pages
Billy Liddell - The Original Exocet Missile
The Billy Liddell Story - Part One
The Billy Liddell Story - Part Two
Billy Liddell - A Week In The Life
Billy Liddell - Match Reports