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Bill Green Bill Green was an uncompromising six foot three stopper centre half. Born in Newcastle he was as unwelcoming on a football pitch as a midnight paddle in the North Sea in January. If Green ever reads this, mind you, he probably thinks that that sounds like fun. He was the type of defender opposing fans might call a donkey but one which his own supporters generally loved. He was a player who gave everything he had to the cause and demanded the same from those around him. This attitude revealed itself early as Green made his way as a youngster with struggling Hartlepool United. Quickly establishing himself as a regular, Bill Green was handed the captaincy at Victoria Park at the the age of twenty. This would normally be referred to as a tender age but in Green's case this does not really seem appropriate.
There was nothing Green could do to lift a sorry Hartlepool out of their customary place towards the foot of the fourth division, however, and after four seasons with the club he was ready for a bigger challenge. The opportunity was afforded him by Carlisle United who paid £16,500 to take Green into the second division in 1973.The move was perfect for Green and provided a massive boost to The Cumbrians as they mounted an unlikely promotion bid which ultimately shocked football by proving successful. Green's towering strength in the air and ferociously keen tackling was vital to this promotion push. He was also reasonably agile for such a big man although it is fair to say he seldom sought to be elaborate with the ball anywhere near his feet. Carlisle entered the first division with Green as their captain, given little hope of surviving. In the clubs' first game, away at Chelsea, Bill Green created history by scoring Carlisle's first goal in the top flight, a left footed piledriver from two yards which put them on the road to a 2-0 win. The club suggested they might have further shocks in store with a bright start to the season but their eventual relegation soon began to look inevitable and so it would prove. The team was simply not good enough. Bill Green certainly gave it everything he had and was not alone but mere effort would not be enough. The season still provided a chance of redemption in the shape of the FA Cup. The club made it through to the sixth round to face second division Fulham. This presented a golden opportunity for Carlisle to book a semi final place but on the day they did not perform and fell to a narrow defeat. It is impossible to guage the importance of this defeat. An FA Cup semi final, then perhaps even a final, would have maintained Carlisle's high profile and provided valuable finances which could have helped fund a return bid for the first division. Instead the club struggled on their return to division two and at the end of the 1976 season Green was on his way out of Brunton Park. West Ham United were the takers, paying £90,000 to hopefully shore up their own porous rearguard. It is likely that only a few onlookers expected the move to be a roaring success and so it proved. The honest but limited Green fought gamely for The Hammers but was not the man to solve the clubs' defensive problems. He was also an obvious target for abuse by those sections of the Upton Park crowd disaffected by the clubs' struggles. Bill Green played in half the Hammers games during his first season at Upton Park with the club managing a seventeenth place finish and did not figure at all until late on in the following campaign, appearing only when the side looked already condemned to relegation. When he finally got a run in the team for the last nine games of the season results did improve with six victories. The damage had already been done, however, and West Ham were relegated in twentieth position. At least Green had been able to register his one West Ham goal during this spell, one he would no doubt have enjoyed, coming as it did in a 3-1 derby victory over Chelsea. Following relegation West Ham were keen to off load Green and found willing takers in Peterborough United who paid £60,000 to take the stopper into the third division. This move augered well. Peterborough had only missed out on promotion through goal difference the previous season and the signing of the fearsome Bill Green seeemed certain to make them even more formidable. Inexplicably the season was a disaster, however, and at the end of it the club were relegated. This meant that in five seasons Green had suffered three relegations and two near misses. He must have been fun to train with at this time. Bill Green's next move would be somewhat happier, however, Chesterfield paying £40,000 to take him to Saltergate.Green was probably happy to be a little further north again and he landed at the club at a good time. Chesterfield had a very tidy side, including the likes of Ernie Moss, Alan Birch, Phil Bonnyman and Geoff Salmons and the third division was dominated by clubs from South Yorkshire and the East Midlands. Both Sheffield clubs,Rotherham United and Barnsleywere all major players in the division along with the Spirites and the plethora of local derbies made it an exciting time and place to be in. Bill Green throve in this environment. He had good players in front of him and a simple mandate to repel anything that came near him. At the end of his first season with them Chesterfield missed out on promotion by one point and one place behind Sheffield Wednesday. The following year they finished fifth. By then, however, the teams' window of opportunity had passed and after finishing eleventh in 1983 the club was relegated to division four the following year despite Bill Green's best efforts. The clubs' real problems lay further forward as it proved impossible to replace Bonnyman, Salmons, Birch and Moss, all departed for various reasons, but Green was the man invariably standing up to be counted as the season disintegrated. Green was unchallenged as the Spireites player of the year and a comment in the matchday programme late on in the campaign sums up his contribution as a player a man at Saltergate. "One player who has been a fine example to the rest of the side this season is skipper Bill Green, who has shouldered his responsibilities like the great guy he is. Bill has turned in some splendid performances and has saved us on more than one occasion this term." The piece was intended as a rallying cry but the team could not respond and ended the season at the foot of the table after collecting just one point from the final nine games. Now thirty three, however, time was catching up with Green. At his best he had certainly had a third gear, now he found it difficult to get out of first unless he slipped. He moved to Doncaster Rovers in the summer but after a handful of games his career was over. In many ways Bill Green might be considered indistinguishable from the myriad raw boned stoppers who have populated English football through the years, whose glory or anonymity have been pretty much determined by the vaguaries of time and place. But Green remains a hero to many supporters. In 2004 he was voted into Carlisle United's greatest ever team by the clubs' supporters and his post match tunnel altercation with Sheffield Wednesday's Terry Curran, only one winner there, is the stuff of legend in Chesterfield.
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Unusual marking!
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Bill Green - Unsung Hero
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