Billy Bingham
William Laurence Bingham was a Northern Irish football player and manager.
As a player, his first professional club was Glentoran, for whom he played between 1948 and 1950. Making a move to England, he then spent eight years with Sunderland, making 227 appearances. In 1958, he switched to Luton Town, making nearly 100 league appearances in three years. This was followed by a two-year association with Everton, where he again went close to 100 league appearances. He finished his career after breaking his leg in a match for Port Vale in 1964 at 33. He had scored 133 goals in 525 appearances in all domestic competitions. Between 1951 and 1963, he won 56 caps for Northern Ireland, scoring 10 international goals, and played at the 1958 FIFA World Cup.
His managerial career started at Southport in 1965. He was appointed manager of Northern Ireland two years later after taking the "Sandgrounders" to promotion out of the Fourth Division. During his time as an international manager, he also took charge at Plymouth Argyle and later Linfield. He led Linfield to a quadruple in 1970–71, his only season in charge. In 1971, he was appointed the head coach of the Greece national side. Two years later, he returned to the domestic game with Everton of England. He returned to Greece briefly in 1977, taking the reins at PAOK. The following year, he returned to England to take charge of Mansfield Town for one full season. In 1980, he was re-appointed as Northern Ireland manager, his final position and a post he would hold for the next 13 years. He led his nation to the finals of the FIFA World Cup in 1982 and 1986.
Club career
Glentoran
Bingham attended Elmgrove Elementary School and was captain of the school's football team, also being selected for Northern Ireland schoolboy games. Born in the Bloomfield area of Belfast, he grew up alongside Jackie and Danny Blanchflower. His father worked at the local shipyards. He began his career with Glentoran on £6-a-week. He made his senior debut on 12 March 1949, in a 1–1 draw with Ballymena United. The "Glens" finished second in the Irish League in 1949–50. While with Glentoran, Bingham also made two appearances for the Irish League representative team. He said that playing against experienced full-back Sammy Cox of the Scottish League XI gave him "my first real practical football lesson".Sunderland
Bingham joined Sunderland in October 1950 for £10,000. He was first informed of the move by football writer Charlie Buchan, who shook his hand and said "congratulations, you've been transferred to Sunderland". In addition to playing professional football at Roker Park, Bingham continued his shipbuilding apprenticeship on the Sunderland shipyards. His speed and ball-control made him a popular player with the "Black Cats", and he gradually worked his way into Bill Murray's first-team plans in 1950–51. He initially was behind Len Duns and Tommy Wright in the pecking order, despite Sunderland's transfer outlay on him as the beginnings of their "Bank of England" team, and he played for the reserves in the North Eastern League. Wright suffered a drop in form, leaving Bingham to make his debut against Stoke City in December. He trained hard and also utilised weight training to improve his strength and compensate for his undersized frame. Wright then suffered a serious injury in March, leaving Bingham to take his place for the remainder of the 1950–51 season.He played in all but six games of the 1951–52 campaign as Wright recovered from his injury, with the Black Cats labouring to a 12th-place finish. He lost his place to the returning Wright in the 1952–53 season. He made just 19 appearances in 1953–54, as Wright continued to hold on to his first-team place. Bingham regained his place in 1954–55, scoring ten goals in 42 games, as Sunderland finished fourth in the First Division, four points behind champions Chelsea. His scoring tally included two consecutive braces in victories over Charlton Athletic and Tyne–Wear derby rivals Newcastle United. They also reached the FA Cup semi-finals, where they lost to Manchester City on a quagmire of a pitch at Villa Park. They slipped to ninth in 1955–56, and again exited the FA Cup at the semi-finals, this time losing 3–0 to Birmingham City. The club were heavily punished for making illegal payments to players, and Bingham himself was one of 15 players that had to forfeit six months' qualification for benefit for receiving these payments. The punishment to the players was later recinded.
The 1956–57 campaign started poorly, and Bingham was dropped in October; he put in a transfer request, which was turned down. The club later informed him that Manchester City had expressed an interest, though he rebuffed their advances. New boss Alan Brown signed outside-right Amby Fogarty from Glentoran, and led the club to relegation in 1957–58. Out of the first-team, Bingham fell out with Brown, and left the club in the summer on a £8,000 transfer to top-flight Luton Town. In total he made 227 appearances and scored 47 goals during his time in the North East.
Luton Town
Bingham had been Luton's second-choice in the transfer market as Aberdeen winger Graham Leggat had instead gone to Fulham. Manager Dally Duncan had limited control of the team. Bingham believed that team captain Syd Owen had greater influence on the board of directors, and indeed Owen was put in charge of the first team after Duncan left Kenilworth Road in October. The "Hatters" finished 17th in the league in 1958–59, but reached the 1959 FA Cup final after Bingham scored the winning goal in the semi-final replay against Norwich City at St Andrew's. Bingham had scored in all the previous rounds as well as Luton had overcome Leeds United, Leicester City, Ipswich Town, and Blackpool. In the Wembley final, his corner set up Dave Pacey for Luton's consolation in a 2–1 defeat to Nottingham Forest.Despite Bingham scoring 16 league goals to become the club's top scorer, Luton were relegated in 1959–60. New manager Sam Bartram failed to keep Bingham for long, and after three goals in 11 Second Division games, including a 35-yard volley against Liverpool at Anfield, he soon attracted offers from Tottenham Hotspur and Arsenal. He wanted his contract improved to the level of new signing Joe McBride, though had to be satisfied when the board instead reduced McBride's contract to the level that the rest of the team were on.
Everton
Bingham joined Everton for a fee of £15,000 plus John Bramwell and Alex Ashworth in October 1960. He had been signed by manager Johnny Carey as outside-left Tommy Ring had broken his leg, with Mickey Lill being switched to outside-left from right-wing to accommodate. Bingham immediately formed a good understanding with Bobby Collins, though a poor start to the 1960–61 campaign left the Toffees unable to get close to runaway First Division champions Tottenham Hotspur. They exited the FA Cup at the third round, with Bingham playing poorly out-of-position on the left following injury to Lill. Carey resigned and was replaced as manager at Goodison Park by Harry Catterick.A fourth-place finish followed in 1961–62, and the "Toffees" won the league title in 1962–63. However, Catterick signed Scotsman Alex Scott in February 1963 for £40,000, and so Bingham's days at Merseyside were numbered. He made 98 appearances and scored 26 goals at Everton.
Port Vale
Bingham joined Port Vale for a then joint-club record fee of £15,000 in August 1963. He scored seven goals in 38 appearances in 1963–64, as Freddie Steele's "Valiants" finished 13th in the Third Division. Johnny Carey, now manager at Nottingham Forest, offered £12,000 to take Bingham back into the top-flight, but he elected to remain at Vale Park. He retired from playing after breaking his leg in a 4–0 defeat at Brentford on 5 September 1964. He left for Southport on a free transfer in April 1965 to become their trainer-coach.International career
Bingham became a Northern Ireland international, winning his first cap against France as a 19-year-old on 12 May 1951. French full-back Roger Marche said at the end of his career that Bingham was the greatest forward he ever played against. Bingham was less effusive in his praise of the national team, however, stating that "we had no team-manager, no set tactics – in fact no team-plan at all". This changed with the appointment of Peter Doherty as manager, and the team went on to defeat England by three goals to two in a British Home Championship match at Wembley on 6 November 1957.On 16 January 1957, Bingham scored his country's first goal in World Cup qualification, as they claimed a 1–1 draw away at Portugal. A subsequent defeat in Italy and home win over Portugal, left Northern Ireland needing to beat the Italians at home to win the group and qualify for the 1958 FIFA World Cup in Sweden. The originally scheduled fixture was converted into a friendly after the original referee was unable to make it, and though the friendly game was drawn 2–2, Northern Ireland won the re-arranged fixture by two goals to one.
In the tournament itself, Northern Ireland beat Czechoslovakia by one goal to nil in the opening match of Group 1, with Bingham and Wilbur Cush forming "an approximation of a double spearhead". The Swedish press wrote that " and Billy Bingham gave an exhibition of fast, clever football never seen before at the ground." The second game was a 3–1 loss to Argentina, against whom he felt their tactics were ill-suited. They needed to beat West Germany in the final group game to ensure qualification from the group, though the ensuing 2–2 stalemate meant that a play-off match with Czechoslovakia was required to decide who would follow the Germans into the knock-out phase. The game was level at 1–1 at full-time, which meant that extra-time followed, and Bingham convinced his teammates to perform calisthenics to demoralise the Czechs. Peter McParland went on to score his fifth goal of the tournament to give the Irish a 2–1 win. The World Cup jounry ended with a 4–0 defeat to France in the quarter-finals.
Qualification for the 1962 FIFA World Cup went poorly, with three defeats in the four games of the qualification group. Bingham was awarded a total of 56 full caps, a record at the time, and also scored 10 goals, half of which were scored in British Home Championship matches against Scotland. Most of his caps came alongside inside-forward partner Jimmy McIlroy, who played domestically for Burnley.