Billy Ball

William Henry Ball ( born April 11, 1876 in West Derby, Liverpool, † 1929) was an English footballer.

Career

Ball played for Rockferry in The Combination, and in 1897 actually already signed a professional contract with New Brighton Tower. This achieved because of a registration error, however, not be valid and opened over the possibility together with his teammate Ben Hulse to change in May 1897 Blackburn Rovers. In his first season, the robust and hard-working right external rotor came to 17 missions in the Football League First Division. In March 1898 he played with Blackburn the final of the Lancashire Senior Cup against Newton Heath at Goodison Park, home ground of Everton FC. The leaders of the host club impressed his performance in the 1-2 defeat in such a way that he was promptly committed to the 1898/99 season. At Everton he was, however, unable to compete against players like Joe Blythe, Richard Boyle and Sam Wolstenholme in the rotor row and remained throughout the course of the season without a league use.

In May 1899 his stay in Liverpool ended again already and he moved to league rivals Notts County, with which he in 1900/ 01 reached the third place in the standings of the First Division, the best championship result in the club's history. After his second year in Nottingham, he expressed a desire to return to Blackburn Rovers to a concern that quickly had the ear of the Blackburn - charge after the departure of the right external rotor Jimmy Moir. In contrast to his first stay at the Rovers but it did not succeed this time to establish himself in the team and played most of the season for the reserve team. His last position in professional football was Manchester United in the Second Division. For Manchester, he came in his four season stakes of the season 1902/ 03 on all three positions of the rotor row to use, but from the strain trio Alex Downie, Billy Griffiths and Walter Cartwright he could no displace permanently.