December 23, 1957
Here is the happiest Soccer story of the year, with sensational goodwill; bursting out all over. It happened at a Liverpool boardroom party yesterday when club chairman Thomas Valentine Williams (T.V. Williams) presented Billy Liddell, 35, and still the emperor of Merseyside Soccer with: A radiogram, a cocktail cabinet, and a china cabinet.
The idea (a wonderful idea) was to mark Liddell’s record of 430 appearances for the club – one which beats that created by goalkeeper Elisha Scott. To make sure that there could be no come-backs, Liverpool had previously obtained the permission of the Football League bosses to make the presentation. They got it willingly – and no modern player is more worthy of a little extra for his efforts.
Liddell joined Liverpool in 1937, a fifteen-year-old groomed into the game by the Scottish junior club, Lochgelly Violet. He progressed to star on the wing for Scotland, for his club – and willingly switched positions when he was asked to.
Liddell is still playing for Liverpool, leading their attack in a vital promotion season. And in all the years he has served them he has never touched by scandal, never asked for a transfer, never caused a moment’s trouble.
He is in fact, the kind of club man who keeps the game going. As chairman T.V. Williams puts it: “Billy is the perfect example to our young players. You meet his like once in a lifetime.”
Off the field, Billy Liddell is the ideal citizen – as you would expect. He was an RAF Pathfinder navigator during the war and is now a Sunday School teacher and treasurer. Everyone connected with Soccer will wish him well in his bid to beat the Merseyside record number of appearances – goalkeeper Ted Sagar’s 465 for Everton.
(Source: Daily Mirror: December 24, 1957)
Billy Liddell, emperor of Merseyside
"Play Up, Liverpool" 