Billy Baxter (soccer player, 1939)

Billy Baxter
Personnel
Surname	William Alexander Baxter
birthday	April 23, 1939
place of birth	Edinburgh ,  Scotland
date of death	May 25, 2009
Place of death	Dunfermline ,  Scotland
position	Defender , outside runner
Men's
Years	station	Games (goals) 1
	Broxburn Athletic
1960-1971	Ipswich Town	409 (21)
1971-1972	Hull City	21 ( 00)
1971-1972	→  Watford FC  (loan)	11 ( 00)
1972-1973	Northampton Town	41 ( 04)
Stations as a trainer
Years	station
1972-1973	Northampton Town
	Nuneaton Borough
1 Only league games are given.

William Alexander "Billy" Baxter (born April 23, 1939 in Edinburgh , † May 25, 2009 in Dunfermline ) was a Scottish football player and coach . He was best known as a longtime defender for Ipswich Town in the 1960s. There he surprisingly won the English championship in 1962, just one year after promotion to the first division , under the later world champion coach Alf Ramsey .

Athletic career

Baxter gained his first experience in Scottish amateur football at Broxburn Athletic before he moved to the English second division club Ipswich Town in June 1960 . At that time he was still doing his military service with the Royal Engineers , was stationed in Aldershot , and at Christmas 1960 he completed a competitive game for Ipswich Town for the first time. He jumped against local rivals Norwich City in the position of right outer runner for the injured Reg Pickett . He knew how to please right away and he quickly developed into a regular player in the team, who achieved promotion to the first division in the 1960/61 season. The following year he was then a key player on the way to surprisingly winning the English championship and only missed two of the 42 league games. The team's success was ultimately identified very strongly with the names Ted Phillips and Ray Crawford , who scored 61 of the 93 goals as a storm pair, but it was players like Baxter on the defensive who provided the necessary support and the ball conquests. Baxter was relatively short at just over five feet, but he did a good headball game. Coach Alf Ramsey , who later looked after the English national team, also appreciated his versatility and leadership skills.

The title win was not sustainable and two years later Ipswich rose from bottom of the table back in the second division. Ramsey had left the club the year before and his successor Jackie Milburn turned out to be a "misunderstanding". After Milburn's resignation in September 1964, Baxter also wanted to leave Ipswich, but chairman John Cobbold prevented the impending “exodus” of top performers with a few salary increases and the words “We are without a coach, almost without points, and we cannot afford to do without To be Baxter ”. Baxter remained with the club and under the new coach Bill McGarry in 1968 managed to return to the first division . Shortly after the start of the 1968/69 season, McGarry left Ipswich for the Wolverhampton Wanderers and the commitment of Bobby Robson as his successor initially put the club in turmoil, for which Baxter was partly responsible. The only 35-year-old Robson, who was considered a failure at his first stop in Fulham , found himself in a power struggle with a number of older Ipswich players. The conflict with Baxter escalated after Robson failed to set him up in a game against Leeds United . The duel was lost 2: 4 and in the dressing room the players "celebrated" the defeat, as Robson later explained in his autobiography. Further disagreements even resulted in a fight between Baxter and Robson. Since the coach had now brought the majority of the players behind him, the club's management decided to sell Baxter, so that in March 1971 Ipswich left after 409 league appearances in the direction of Hull City .

In contrast to Robson, who later developed into an important English coach figure, Baxter's zenith in professional football was now exceeded. After the unsuccessful engagement at Hull City and as a loan player in Watford , he became player-coach for the fourth division club Northampton Town in 1972 . There he could not prevent his team from landing in the penultimate place in the 1972/73 season and just barely prevented relegation through a successful re-election application. He later worked as a full-time coach for the lower class Nuneaton Borough before retiring from the football business.

At the end of his life he suffered from the effects of cancer and a month after his 70th birthday he died in a hospital in Dunfermline in his Scottish homeland.

Title / Awards

• English Championship (1): 1962

Web links

• Statistical data from the Post War English & Scottish Football League AZ Player's Database
• Profile on barryhugmansfootballers.com

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Martin Brooks: Ipswich Town Champions 1961/62 . The History Press, Stroud 2011, ISBN 978-0-7524-5890-8 , pp. 138 .
2. ^ "Billy Baxter: Ipswich Town stalwart who flourished under Alf Ramsay but came to blows with Bobby Robson" (The Independent)