On this day in 1979 Billy Elliott was sacked as manager of Sunderland because the board wanted a younger man in the dugout.
Having started his career with wartime games for Bradford Park Avenue in 1942, Billy’s impressive left-wing performances brought about a move across the Pennines to Burnley in 1951 – for £23,000 but not until he’d asked for the move several times. His 74 league games for the Clarets saw him win five England caps, in which he scored an impressive three times – a much better ratio than his club form of 14 in 74.
At the time, we were fond of splashing the cash, so we forked out £26,000 to bring Billy to our left wing in June 1953, a move that began a love affair with Sunderland which lasted a lifetime. Over the next six years, alongside fellow Bradfordian Shack, Trevor Ford, Tommy Wright, George Aitken, Stan Anderson, Billy Bingham, Arthur Wright – the list goes on – he played 212 competitive games and scored 27 times (once into his own net). As well as sparkling on the wing, his hard-as-nails attitude suited a move deeper to left half, a position he’d occupied on occasion at Park Avenue, and from late 1956 even further to left back. Following our relegation in 1958 he featured less regularly, playing only nine times and scoring his final goal, a penalty in a 3-3 draw with Sheff Wed at Roker on September 10th. After a 5-0 defeat at Swansea in midweek, we suffered a 6-0 defeat at Hillsborough on the 17th (no such thing as a computer algorithm in those halcyon days, and they were Charlie Hurley’s first two games) ending Billy’s eight game run at left back. A certain Len Ashurst took over, and Billy’s final game in the stripes came at Cardiff on December 21st, where we lost 2-0. At the end of the season he moved to Wisbech Town for a couple of seasons.
Once his playing days were over at the age of 36 he began his coaching career, taking on the exotic role in charge of the Libyan national side in October 1961, but leaving after a couple of years to work as a scout for Sheff Wed. A year later he became the US Forces coach in Germany, then two years after that became trainer at Daring FC in Brussels. Eighteen months after that, in January 1968, he came “home” to Roker as coach, stepping in as caretaker manager when Alan Brown left “by mutual consent” at the end of October. During his four game tenure before the arrival of Bob Stokoe, he had the rather bright idea of moving Dave Watson from centre forward to centre half. Clever fella.
Back he went to his coaching role until late 1973, sitting on the bench on that fabulous day at Wembley half a century ago. Billy left us at the end of the season, and a few months later began a four-year stint as coach at Brann in Norway. He was back at Roker when Jimmy Adamson left in late 1978, managing us until the end of the season, overseeing Gary Rowell’s finest hour at Sid James, and missing out on promotion by a single point (ooh, that team he selected for the Blackburn game. Ask yer dad). Despite supporters handing the club a petition begging them to give Billy the job on a permanent basis, Ken Knighton arrived, and Billy was off to spend four years as manager of Darlo. On retirement he settled in Sunderland and was a regular visitor to games, but unfortunately suffering a heart attack at the Sol when a guest of Peter Reid in 1999. Thankfully, he was back in his seat before the season’s end.
Towards the end of 2007, Billy suffered ill health and passed away the following January, aged 82.
The original Billy Elliott, with two ‘t’s, 212 games, 26 goals.
