Welcome to
my weekly blog “The Igor Bišćan Hall of Fame” every week I’ll be adding two new
additions, one will be a Liverpool Legend or fans favourite, the other a
Player, Manager or Club who have contributed to the world game we all love
(Gary Neville need not worry), This week 'Mr. Liverpool' and ‘The Black
Panther' go in. Please comment below who you’d like to see make the IBHoF, here
are this weeks entries. YNWA
BILLY
LIDDELL
1945/46 -
1960/61
It is
scarcely possible to exaggerate the stature of Billy Liddell in the history of
Liverpool FC. As a footballer he thrilled the Anfield faithful; as a man he
warmed their hearts; as a symbol of all that was fine in the field of sporting
endeavour he was unmatchable.
For nearly
15 years the self-effacing Scottish winger cum centre-forward was the
outstanding player for a club which experienced fleeting moments of glory but
which, in general, was a frustrated hotbed of unfulfilled potential. Had he
been born two, three or four decades later and played under Shankly or Paisley,
Fagan or Dalglish, he would have been knee-deep in honours. As it was he had to
be content with a solitary League Championship medal and the knowledge that not
for nothing was the team he graced known as Liddellpool.
Billy
signed on at Anfield as a promising flankman in 1939 and then saw the first six
years of his career lost to the war. During the conflict he served as an RAF
navigator but his soccer talents were not entirely redundant. He played almost
150 times for his new club in emergency competitions and served notice that
here was something special.
In January
1946, with life gradually returning to something approaching normality, he made
his official Liverpool debut five days short of his 24th birthday, scoring at
Chester in the FA Cup. But it was in the following campaign that Billy Liddell
really set sail on the course that was to earn him sporting immortality on
Merseyside.
Playing 35
games as the Reds took the title, he revealed the pace and power which were to
become his hallmarks. Billy was particularly dangerous running at defenders and
cutting inside from the left wing, and although he found the net only seven
times that season he effectively demonstrated the dashing style which was to
make him one of Liverpool's most prolific goal-scorers.
As he grew
in experience his influence on the team burgeoned. He was muscular and skilful,
blessed with a sprinter's speed and a fearsome shot, good in the air and
unfailingly courageous. He took the eye whether lining up on the left, the
right or in the centre, a veritable one-man forward line. Sadly the side did
not progress at the same rate and Billy - by now a Scotland regular whose
international standing and durability were recognised by selection for Great
Britain against the Rest of Europe in 1947 and 1955 was in the unfortunate
position of being a star in a team which plunged first to mid-table mediocrity
and ultimately, in 1953/54, to relegation.
He reacted
with characteristic determination and in his first four seasons in the lower
grade notched 101 goals in 156 League matches - he was the Reds' leading scorer
in eight out of nine seasons in the fifties - but it was not enough to secure
promotion.
As his pace
waned with age, he lost that stirring ability to run past defenders but
compensated with a more mature passing game from a deep-lying position. The
devotion of the supporters never wavered and when he returned at the age of 37
after one of several spells on the sidelines he scored two spectacular goals
against Bristol City in August 1959. The acclaim was rapturous, and deservedly
so.
But there
was more to Billy than his athletic attributes. A chivalrous, loyal man who was
not too proud to stud the boots for his team-mates when left out of the side in
1959, he was always ready to help youngsters and went on to become a youth
worker, lay preacher and JP. If ever a footballer deserved to be called a hero,
then it was Billy Liddell. He will be forever revered on Merseyside and beyond.
BORN:
Dunfermline, 10.1.22. GAMES: 537. GOALS: 229.
DIED:
Liverpool, 3.7.01
CLUBS:
1937-38 Lochgelly Violet F.C., 1938-1961 Liverpool.
HONOURS:
League Championship 46/7.
INERNATIONAL
CAREER: 28 Scotland caps (47-56), 2 Great Britain XI Caps.
*************************************************************************************************************
EUSEBIO
Eusébio da
Silva Ferreira is the most famous footballer that Portugal has ever produced.
He has been the subject of a film, Sua Majestade o Re! (His Majesty the King),
is feted wherever he goes and in 1992 a statue in his honour was unveiled outside
Benfica's Stadium of Light. Small wonder when you consider that in 291 League
games for the Lisbon club he scored an incredible 317 goals, many of them
spectacular.
Eusébio had
grace, pace and power, earning him the nickname of 'The Black Panther'. His
deadly shooting allied to his strong running and dribbling skills made him one
of the most dangerous strikers in the world. At the height of his fame in the
sixties he was hailed as Europe's Pele.
As a
teenager in the Portuguese colony of Mozambique, Eusébio was a sprint champion
and an accomplished basketball player, but football was the game he loved. He
made his debut in 1958 with Lourenco Marques, a nursery club for Portuguese
giants Sporting Lisbon, but Benfica were also alerted to Eusébio's talents when
their coach, Bela Guttmann, happened to be sitting in the hairdresser's next to
the coach of Brazilian club Sao Paolo, who were touring Portugal at the time.
The
Brazilian told Guttmann about a brilliant footballer he had seen in Portuguese
East Africa and within a week Guttmann had flown out to sign Eusébio.
Unfortunately Sporting still thought they had a claim on him too and so when
Eusébio arrived in Lisbon in 1961 he was 'kidnapped' by Benfica and hidden away
in an Algarve fishing village until the two clubs settled their differences!
With the
contract wrangle eventually resolved in Benfica's favour, Eusébio made an
instant impact, helping the club win the Portuguese title in his first season.
The following year he scored twice as Benfica humbled five-times winners Real
Madrid 5-3 in the European Cup Final in Amsterdam - the first time Real had
tasted defeat in a major European final. In 1963 he again scored in the
European Cup Final but this time Benfica slipped up 2-1 to AC Milan at Wembley.
He went on to play in two more finals - against Inter Milan in 1965 and
Manchester United in 1968 - but finished on the losing side both times.
Voted
European Footballer of the Year in 1965, Eusébio was already an established
international by the time of the 1966 World Cup. He was without doubt the
outstanding player of the tournament, being top scorer with nine goals,
including four in that epic encounter with North Korea where he single-handedly
dragged the Portuguese back from the very brink of an embarrassing defeat.
Despite also scoring in the semi-final defeat against England, he left the
pitch in tears. His performances had made such an impression on the British
public that his figure was immediately added to Madame Tussaud's waxwork
collection. Most defenders must have wished they had been playing against the
dummy.
His
speciality right-foot thunderbolts made him the leading scorer in Portugal on
seven occasions and his total of 46 goals in European competition put him
second only to Alfredo Di Stefano. In addition he twice finished top scorer in
the whole of Europe with 42 goals in 1968 and 40 in 1973. By the time he left
Benfica to move to the newly formed North American Soccer League in 1975
following a bad knee injury, he had picked up no fewer than ten Portuguese
League winner's medals. In his fifteen seasons in Lisbon, there were only two
in which he failed to win a major honour.
After two
years in America he returned to Benfica as coach but, as so often happens, he
failed to repeat his success as a player. In his entire career he played 715
games and scored 727 goals. He was truly awesome.
BORN:
Lourenço Marques (now Maputo), Portuguese East Africa (now Mozambique).
21.1.42.
CLUBS: 1957–1960 Sporting Lourenço Marques,
1960–1975 Benfica, 1975 Rhode Island Oceaneers, 1975 Boston Minutemen,
1975–1976 Monterrey, 1976–1977 Beira-Mar, 1976 Toronto Metros-Croatia, 1977 Las
Vegas Quicksilvers, 1978 New Jersey Americans, 1977–1978 União de Tomar
INERNATIONAL
CAREER: Portugal 1961–1973 Caps 64 Goals 41
*************************************************************************************************************
No comments:
Post a Comment