Good stuff mate. Delighted to see someone on here who can say they actually saw him play and can provide reliable testimony as to his greatness. I wasn't as fortunate as you to see him on the pitch though I remember seeing him quite a few times attending the match after his retirement. My old fella started taking me to odd games in the '59/60 season and Billy never seemed to play in the games I got to. All the usual lot were there - Bert Slater or Doug Rudham, Molyneux, Ronnie Moran, Dick White, Jimmy Harrower, Johnny Wheeler et alia but sadly never Billy. But like you I was brought up to revere Billy as the greatest ever. Even worse than not seeing him play, off the top of my head I can't even recall ever seeing any footage of him - though I guess there surely must be something knocking round.
And cheers again for posting.
Thanks Timbo and aplogies to Ziltoid for temporarily hijacking his thread. Posts by us old-farts are thin on the ground.
Your remembered line-up brought a smile. As a kid I played tiddleywinks football on the mat, red counters inked with players names and could name the team by heart. Molyneux, Moran, a fine pair of backs but my all-time favourite was Gerry Byrne, master of the long outlawed two-footed sliding tackle and so good at it he hardly ever got carded. Laurie Hughes, our best centre half until Yeats arrived.
The exercise of picking an 'all-time' team is a fascinating one but a bit futile. It always will be slanted towards recent players, naturally.
Of all people, Lineker said it best about comparisons across eras, in my opinion:
"The game evolves and so, if you put my team from 1990 against a modern team, we’d get murdered. But if we had time to adapt, the best players then would still be among the best now.”
He also pointed out that today's pitches are light-years better than they were even 20 years ago, let alone back in the 1950s/60s when goalmouth areas were quagmires from mid-November to the end of the season. And the equipment? A ball that doubled its weight in soggy weather and footwear like downhill ski boots. Advantages too, back then, no doubt. For a start, you had to just about commit murder to get sent off. Which brings up another point about Liddell, hard as nails, but a gentleman on and off the pitch. Can't recall a single caution, although I seem to remember there was at least one.