Billy Eames

Billy Eames
Personnel
Surname	William Alan Eames
birthday	20th September 1957
place of birth	Emsworth ,  England
position	midfield
Juniors
Years	station
1974-1975	Portsmouth FC
Men's
Years	station	Games (goals) 1
1975-1977	Portsmouth FC	12 (1)
	FC Waterlooville
1978	Brentford FC	2 (1)
1 Only league games are given.

William Alan "Billy" Eames (born September 20, 1957 in Emsworth ) is a former English soccer player who came to the Football League for Portsmouth FC and Brentford FC in the 1970s .

Career

Eames started at the Emsworth Primary School with the football game, brought it into the field of vision of the English national school team and fell on the responsible of Portsmouth FC as a selection player of the Havant District Schools FA . From the youth coach of Portsmouth FC, the former national player Ray Pointer , Eames received an offer as an apprentice (German trainee) to join the youth division of Portsmouth FC as early as 1973 . However, since the age of compulsory schooling in the United Kingdom had been raised from 15 to 16 shortly before, Eames was only able to join the club in 1974. Under Pointers successor Ray Crawford recommended Eames, as well as a number of other young players (including Phil Figgins , Peter Ellis , Steve Foster and Chris Kamara ), subsequently for assignments in the professional team.

Coach Ian St. John was forced by financial restrictions and an ever smaller professional squad to include more young players. For example, in May 1976 Eames participated in a friendly against the Scottish series champions Celtic Glasgow , which was lost 6-1 in front of almost 10,000 spectators, but generated urgently needed income to be able to pay the salaries for the upcoming season.

Eames succeeded in his competitive debut in the professional field, a league cup game in September 1975 against the first division Leicester City , a few minutes after his substitution, the hit in the 1-1 draw. Also in his debut game in the FA Cup a few months later against the first division club Birmingham City , the winger scored Portsmouth's goal in a 1-1 draw at Fratton Park ; in the replay, in which he also took part, you eliminated the class higher opponent by a hit from Bobby McGuinness ultimately. In the league, Portsmouth was meanwhile not competitive in the second division season 1975/76 . His only league goal for a 1-0 win against Carlisle United on January 10, 1976 - through a cross that he claims failed - was Portsmouth's first home win in the 16th home game of the season and the first home goal after 505 goalless minutes (a negative record for the club which was only broken in December 2007), unsurprisingly, the team was relegated to the third division at the end of the season as the bottom of the table . There he played no role and only came to two appearances in cup competitions at the start of the season before he left the club at the end of the season after 18 competitive appearances (3 goals). As a result, Eames had a four-month interlude in non-league football at FC Waterlooville in the Southern Football League .

At the beginning of the 1978/79 season Eames was active as a test player for two months at third division club Brentford , and although he contributed a goal to a 2-1 win against Lincoln City on his debut and thereby showed "above average talent", he received from Coach Bill Dodgin did not offer a contract. Eames then ended his professional career and was henceforth only active in local football. He earned his living as a PE teacher at Cams Hill School in Fareham .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Billy Eames in the barryhugmansfootballers.com database. Retrieved August 16, 2020.
2. ^ ^{A b} Mick Cooper: Pompey People: Portsmouth FC Who's Who (1899-2000) . Yore Publications, Harefield 2000, ISBN 978-1-874427-58-2 , pp. 45 .
3. ↑ ^{a b c d} portsmouthtoday.co.uk: Billy Eames: Debut goal was my Fratton highlight (Jan. 2, 2009) ( Memento of the original from April 2, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , accessed July 15, 2017 
4. ↑ thecelticwiki.com: 1976-05-19: Portsmouth 1-6 Celtic, Friendly , accessed July 15, 2017
5. ↑ portsmouth.co.uk: Billy admits to historic Fratton fluke (Jan. 16, 2008) , accessed July 15, 2017
6. ↑ pompeyrama.com: Pompey By Player - Billy Eames , accessed July 15, 2017
7. ↑ Graham Haynes, Frank Coumbe: Timeless Bees: Brentford FC Who's Who 1920-2006 . Yore Publications, Harefield 2006, ISBN 978-0-9552949-1-4 , pp. 52 .