Billy Liddell - This website is a part of LFCHistory.net

First friendly vs Preston

A SCOT'S DEBUT AT ANFIELD
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Liddle Pleases On The Wing

"There were fewer than 300 people at Anfield for the "friendly" against Preston. Nivvy had a damaged ankle and this allowed Liddle, an 18-year-old Scot, to make his debut for the first team at outside right."

So begins the match report for Billy LIDDELL's, (the press misspelling his name as Liddle in this report) first ever game for Liverpool' first team.

This is how Liverpool lined up for Liddell's monumental game: Riley, Cooper, Ramsden, Busby, Bush, S. Eastham, Liddell, Taylor, Done, Fagan, Van den Berg.

Press reporter "Contact" concludes that "Liddle showed great promise and was never beaten in this game, which deserved a 30,000 gate for the excellence of the football shown." He also mentions in closing that "Liddle was making the Preston defence go all out."

Click on match report for a bigger image.

King Billy quote

"Sir William Liddell - to bestow upon him a title he more than earned - WAS Liverpool Football Club. He was its spirit. He was also its integrity, its heart and its passion. To Reds such as my mother and father and others of the pre-Bill Shankly generation he represented a ticket to some sort of footballing respectability. The "Liddellpool" tag the club was awarded was no hype or coincidence. It was fact.

I suppose it was the reverence for him that stood out above everything else. The sheer universal respect for this truly unassuming man. Both Red and Blue alike had a mutual awe of Billy Liddell that I have only ever encountered for two other people. One was the incredible William Ralph Dean and the other was Bill Shankly himself. I think that says everything about the man."