William Edward ‘Billy’ Scott
was born in Belfast on 17th May 1882, the son of William and Mary
Jane Scott. He was their second child but by 1904 Billy was to have nine siblings,
six sisters and three brothers. By trade he became an iron moulder but his goalkeeping
skills found him on the books of local club Cliftonville as an amateur in 1901.
Unable to command a first team spot there he moved to rivals Linfield and after
his debut on 31st August 1901 he was an ever present for the
following three years, winning the League and Cup double with them in 1902 and
1904. He made his full international debut in 1901 against England.
It was in 1904 that he moved
to Everton for a fee of £450 and by the 1905-06 season he was established as
first choice goalkeeper. Thus in his first full season he secured a cup winner’s
medal in the 1-0 defeat of Newcastle. In his 8 years at Goodison Park he made
251 League appearances, keeping a clean
sheet in 76 of these games, a feat only Neville Southall, Gordon West and Ted
Sagar have bettered.
In June 1912 Scott moved to
Second Division Leeds United to play under the legendary manager Herbert
Chapman. Whilst with Leeds he played in the Irish team which beat England for
the first time, a 2-1 win at Windsor Park. He made 26 appearances for the
Yorkshire club, leaving in 1914 and returning to sign for Liverpool F.C. for
whom he played a number of wartime fixtures. He did not appear in any first
class competitive games for the reds but was in goal for them when they
defeated Everton in a Lancashire Cup Final on New Year’s Day 1919. There was to
be a continuing Scott presence at Anfield as, on Billy Scott’s recommendation,
they signed his younger brother Elisha, also a goalkeeper, in 1920. He would go
on to play over 400 times for the reds.
Billy Scott died aged just 54
from pneumonia on 15th August 1936 and was buried at Anfield
Cemetery. On 17th May 2017 the Everton Heritage Society organised a
service of dedication for a headstone on his previously unmarked grave.
In 1905 Billy Scott married
Mary Carlisle at St Anne’s Church on Aigburth Road. At the time he was living
at 35 Loraine Street L4 (it ran off Breckfield Road North and is now the site
of the Breckfield Centre). In the 1911 census they were living with their 6
month old daughter Dorothy at 14 Elsie Road L4. the couple had lost a daughter, Pauline Veronica, aged just 9 months in 1908. At the time of his death he was
living at 309 Walton Breck Road L4. After the end of his football career Billy
Scott was reported as having gone into the taxi business and the article in the
Liverpool Echo [17-8-1936] reporting his death states that he and his
wife were later “concerned themselves with licensed houses”.
