BILLY HAMILTON 

Date and Place of Birth 9th May 1957 - Belfast   Transfers to and from Burnley from Queens Park Rangers - November 1979 (£38,000) to Oxford United - August 1984 (£95,000)   First and Last Burnley Games Bristol Rovers (a) - 1st December 1979   Hull City (h) - 15th May 1984   Other Clubs Linfield, Queens Park Rangers ---------------------------------------- Oxford United

Burnley Career Stats

Profile by Tony Scholes

What do you remember about the summer of 1982? For me it was the summer my dad had to retire from work, but it was also World Cup year. England reached the second group stage but for me the memories of that World Cup will be the performance of Northern Ireland and in particular a certain centre forward.

On the 25^th June I was in trouble with my mum. It was my dad's retirement party and I managed to miss some of it to take in that memorable win for the Irish against Spain when Gerry Armstrong converted Billy Hamilton's cross. If truth be known my dad wanted to stay at home and watch the game as well.

In the next round Billy scored twice against Austria but it wasn't enough, they drew the game and didn't make the semi-finals. There's nothing to beat having a Burnley player in the World Cup, no matter for which country, it certainly gives us a lot more interest in the competition.

Billy Hamilton had been at Burnley for two and a half seasons by then. The Turf Moor crowd loved this very British barnstorming type of centre forward who was very strong in the air. Almost from the beginning we took to him, when he scored his first Burnley goal with a header in a 3-2 Boxing Day win against Newcastle in 1979.

That was the day the Burnley fans introduced, "Hark now hear the Burnley sing, the Geordies ran away, and we will sing forever more because of Boxing Day."

Hamilton had signed at the end of November from QPR. There'd been no speculation about it and the move came right out of the blue with Burnley struggling right down at the bottom of the old second division. Brian Miller had replaced Harry Potts as manager earlier in the season and Hamilton was his first signing.

He'd started his career in his native Northern Ireland with Linfield who play their home games at Windsor Park. He was still to win his first full cap but had been capped at Under-21 level when it was time to move on. That was in April 1978 when he was signed by Frank Sibley for QPR in a £25,000 deal.

In almost twenty months at Loftus Road he never established himself in the team and played just twelve league games, nine of them starts, scoring two goals although he did win that first cap for his country. Both those goals came in the same game against Manchester City at home.

Despite his lack of first team action his value went up and when Miller brought him to Turf Moor he cost us £38,000. In the previous game we'd won for the first time all season, a 5-3 win against Cambridge. Our two strikers that day were Paul Fletcher and Jeff Tate. Tate in fact scored the last goal of the game but neither he, nor Fletcher, played for us again.

On 1^st December 1979 Hamilton made his debut alongside Malcolm Smith who was brought in from the cold as we drew 0-0 at Eastville against Bristol Rovers. The new man did have the ball in the net but it was disallowed.

He went on to score seven goals that season but they couldn't prevent us dropping out of the top two divisions for the first time in our history. Down a division he had a new partner in Steve Taylor, and it was Taylor who proved to be the goalscorer. However, Hamilton's presence in the side proved vital.

We finished seventh but after a poor start to the following season, 1981/82, we went on to clinch the title. Billy played alongside Taylor, Paul McGee and even Brian Flynn during that season and he scored eleven league goals having played in every game.

An interesting statistic is that all but one of his goals came at Turf Moor, the exception was his equalising goal in a 1-1 draw at Walsall in March. The goals from that season that always stick in my mind are the two he got in a 3-0 home win against Reading. Both were headers at the Bee Hole End from crosses, giving us a 2-0 lead in the first twelve minutes or so. Probably it is because the game was televised for highlights the following day.

He also scored two in the penultimate home game, both in a 2-0 win against Preston, one of them a special goal.

Back in the second division he scored another thirteen league goals and again only one of them was away from Turf Moor. He scored the fourth in a 4-1 win in the first away game of the season at Middlesbrough.

Incredibly he scored more goals in one cup win at Spurs than he did in the entire league season, and how those of us there remember that night. And there were also two hat tricks for him that season.

The first of them came in the second home game of the season against Carlisle, a game we won 4-1, but the other came in a sensational game against Charlton. The visitors had been reduced to nine men but with thirteen minutes to go we were just 2-1 up with first half goals from Taylor and Hamilton.

In that last thirteen minutes Trevor Steven scored whilst the first half scorers both completed their hat tricks to record a 7-1 win. That's how to play against nine men.

The cup exploits, and that memorable Hamilton inspired night at White Hart Lane, proved to be the only highlights and again we were relegated and that brought about big changes at Turf Moor with the arrival of John Bond.

That Bond season, 1983/84 proved to be Billy's last at Turf Moor and in so many ways I think it was his best. He scored eighteen league goals which was his best return, and alongside Kevin Reeves and Tommy Hutchison his game seemed to find a new level.

There was another hat trick in the first home game of the season against Bournemouth and everything looked perfect until Reeves picked up what proved to be a serious injury at Orient in the first game of 1984.

Billy only scored four more goals after that when he'd looked almost certain to become the first Burnley player since fellow countryman Willie Irvine in 1966 to hit twenty league goals in a season. Everyone refers to the importance of that Reeves injury and Billy must always wonder just how many goals he might have scored had it not happened. He was possibly heading for the club's post war record.

As the season petered out in disappointing fashion there were soon suggestions that Hamilton, out of contract, was looking to move on, and he did. During that summer he signed for Oxford.

Thankfully players out of contract back then didn't go free and we received £95,000 plus Neil Whatmore from the newly promoted club managed by Jim Smith. Some will say the inclusion of Whatmore in the deal actually reduced the figure from £95,000 but that's for another profile.

He teamed up with John Aldridge at the Manor Ground and they took the second division by storm with Oxford winning a second successive promotion. Oxford in the top division looks hard to believe now but that's where they were. But for Hamilton an injury ruled him out for much of that season. They reached the League Cup Final and he played no part.

He was in the Northern Ireland squad again for the 1986 World Cup but he had no impact and it was clear time was running out for him. In October 1986 he played his last game for Oxford in a win against Coventry. He was just 29.

Afterwards he played for a short time alongside Brian Flynn at Limerick and then tried to make a comeback with Colne Dynamoes. It wasn't to be but he hadn't finished and managed Distillery for a while after going home. His connections with Burnley weren't quite over and he played a part in our signing of Glen Little in 1997.

After football he opened a sports and trophy shop in Banger and was only too happy to provide us with a special trophy for Shaun Parker when he passed away in 2004. That was typical of Billy who is always welcome back at Turf Moor.

His last visit was for our win over Leeds just over two years ago, and the reception was as good as ever. That's no surprise, our old barnstorming centre forward was just about the most popular player during his time at Burnley and is still named by many Burnley fans as their favourite ever Claret. And of course, he gave us that unforgettable World Cup.