Bill Perry

[Rubberpigg]

Someone was telling me about Bill Perry yesterday.
Never heard of him before.

William (Bill) Perry, the son of an English man and a South African woman, was born in Johannesburg on 10th September, 1930.
Perry played for his hometown club, Johannesburg Rangers, from the age of 16 and signed for Blackpool at 19 in 1949.

Hemade his league debut for Blackpool the following year. He joined a team that included Stanley Matthews, Stan Mortensen, Harry Johnson and Hughie Kelly.

Perry's most notable achievement was scoring the injury-time winner in the 1953 FA Cup Final against Bolton, cementing a comeback from 1-3 to 4-3 thanks to an earlier Stan Mortensen hat-trick. As in 1951, his semi-final goal, this time against Tottenham Hotspur, sent Blackpool on their way to Wembley.

During the 1955-56 season, Perry scored twenty goals (a record for a winger) (including a hat-trick in the first of two West Lancashire derbies in the space of twenty-four hours) to help Blackpool to their highest-ever league position of runners-up in Division One.

A cartilage operation virtually ended Perry's playing career, and after being in and out of the side, he was transfer-listed in the summer of 1962.

Southport came in for his services, where he played 26 games from August 1962 until May 1963 when he joined Hereford United.

He remained at Edgar Street for just the one season and made a total of 29 appearances for Hereford during his time there. Perry left Hereford at the end of the 1963-64 season and had a short spell in Australia before retiring with Holyhead Town. He became a director of Fleetwood Town between 1967 and 1970.

Perry made three appearances for England, scoring two goals.

He passed away on 27 September 2007.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Perry_%28footballer%29

Here are highlights form the 1953 FA Cup Final:

[video=youtube;NgPfwYqhmA0]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NgPfwYqhmA0[/video]