Peter Billing (1 Viewer)

fernandopartridge said:

Ally Pickering scored at Plymouth, perhaps that's who Martian is on about

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Probably was, FP. I remember the B&B we were in and a sending off. Thought there was a direct freekick as well but just seen the highlights and even that was wrong (do people still read half the crap I seem to write ? I'm even starting to doubt my own memory). I knew Billing had a powerful shot so must have got confused. I blame Lockdown Stir Crazy and an old brain. I need a purge

I didn't particularly rate him. But when we lost away at Villa last games of the season with a performance that really deserved relegation - he was one of the few who seemed to really care and was passionate when we realised we had actually stayed up.

Legia Sky Blue said:

Professional footballers are light years ahead of your average Saturday/ Sunday player. Always makes me chuckle when fans quote 'such and such' is shit as a matter of fact, when they probably can't kick a ball themselves. Was hilarious at the Ricoh when they did that half time shooting into an empty net thing, and our fans were all hopeless. Most missed on their 2nd attempt from 25 yards, while the only person I saw succeed from the half way line was Dietmar Bruck, doing it for charity, when he must have been 65. I also remember before the start of this season someone posted on here, who had played in a Leamington fans game against a CCFC old boys XI, and he seemed genuinely stunned about how good Michael Doyle was, someone who many of our fans regard as being limited in terms of football talent. It is all relative I know, but these players are not shit, even Greg Downs and Paul Edwards

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You were doing really well until the very last bit.

Legia Sky Blue said:

Professional footballers are light years ahead of your average Saturday/ Sunday player. Always makes me chuckle when fans quote 'such and such' is shit as a matter of fact, when they probably can't kick a ball themselves. Was hilarious at the Ricoh when they did that half time shooting into an empty net thing, and our fans were all hopeless. Most missed on their 2nd attempt from 25 yards, while the only person I saw succeed from the half way line was Dietmar Bruck, doing it for charity, when he must have been 65. I also remember before the start of this season someone posted on here, who had played in a Leamington fans game against a CCFC old boys XI, and he seemed genuinely stunned about how good Michael Doyle was, someone who many of our fans regard as being limited in terms of football talent. It is all relative I know, but these players are not shit, even Greg Downs and Paul Edwards

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I remember reading Fever Pitch, and Nick Hornby makes the same point about Arsenal ‘legend’ Gus Caeser. He was the only player from the Arsenal youth team to ‘make it’, and how good he must have been to get that far, and yet was considered to be utter shite...clearly he wasn’t compared to most people.
However, I would say that if you’re paid to do nothing but kicking footballs all day then you might expect a little more from some players.
I’ve always found it interesting for those people that don’t really get a chance. I’ve heard a few ex-pros -Bryan Robson, Sol Campbell, Roy Keane immediately spring to mind - talking about how they weren’t even the best players in their school teams.

I thought it was kirk Stephens who was successful from half way line and that only crept in. Tbf most took the prize before then but none of them bright enough to adjust. It was like they all aimed at the centre despite the 18 yard one only creeping just inside the post. If you saw it curling aim outside to correct it, really not that difficult. I'm fat old and walk with a limp but with my daughter in nets can still hit the target from distance albeit powerlessby the time it reaches.

Terry_dactyl said:

I’ve always found it interesting for those people that don’t really get a chance. I’ve heard a few ex-pros -Bryan Robson, Sol Campbell, Roy Keane immediately spring to mind - talking about how they weren’t even the best players in their school teams.

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There can be a few reasons for that. First is that they're that good they don't have the discipline to be part of a team. They ball-hog and that's fine at school age but as you get older and opposition get more wily in how to deal with them if they can't adapt they fall by the wayside. By adult some of those players can be a liability overall and the less talented but dependable are chosen and tend to be more popular and more accepted as leaders, which again the prima donna ego's find difficult to accept.

Other main thing is athleticism. Known a few people with brilliant ball control, shooting and passing accuracy etc but not naturally athletic players and are blowing out of their arse after 10 minutes. Once the tiredness creeps in that ability starts to falter a bit and they're one step behind play etc. Why I always preferred 5-a-side - lots of short bursts rather than prolonged running.

Billing according to the Championship Manager 97/98 database:

Adaptability 11
Aggression 14
Big Occasion 10
Character 9 (20 = Gazza, 1 = Platt)
Consistency 14
Creativity 5
Determination 14
Dirtyness 12
Dribbling 2
Flair 6
Heading 14
Influence 7
Injury Proneness 8
Marking 7
Off The Ball 10
Pace random
Passing 9
Positioning 9
Set Pieces 11
Shooting 11
Stamina 8
Strength 14
Tackling 16
Technique 6

That's really high passing for an English CB in that DB (Keown was 1!), so they must have been influenced by some notion that Crewe produced ball-players and presumed that he was one! Maybe their researcher saw the same training session with him pinging the ball around? The Set Pieces and Shooting are amusingly high too, obviously a nod to that free kick, but ridiculously high for a bloke who ended his pro career with a grand total of 2 goals.

I think I'd edit his Aggression up to about 16-20 and the same for his Determination. Strength could be a bit higher too. Passing should be more like 5-7, shooting 5-6, Positioning and Marking a touch higher to double figures. Dirtyness probably higher than 12!

Terry_dactyl said:

I remember reading Fever Pitch, and Nick Hornby makes the same point about Arsenal ‘legend’ Gus Caeser. He was the only player from the Arsenal youth team to ‘make it’, and how good he must have been to get that far, and yet was considered to be utter shite...clearly he wasn’t compared to most people.
However, I would say that if you’re paid to do nothing but kicking footballs all day then you might expect a little more from some players.
I’ve always found it interesting for those people that don’t really get a chance. I’ve heard a few ex-pros -Bryan Robson, Sol Campbell, Roy Keane immediately spring to mind - talking about how they weren’t even the best players in their school teams.

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My nephew was in City's Academy for about 4 years in the same group as Cyrus Christie. They were a good group, beating just about everybody they came up against but Christie was the only one that made it of that group. He was most definitely the best athlete, although the worst technically, but even then you could see that he was the one the coaches were looking at as their best prospect.

Legia Sky Blue said:

My nephew was in City's Academy for about 4 years in the same group as Cyrus Christie. They were a good group, beating just about everybody they came up against but Christie was the only one that made it of that group. He was most definitely the best athlete, although the worst technically, but even then you could see that he was the one the coaches were looking at as their best prospect.

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Hmmm, is it just about athleticism? You might be right.
As a teenager I played in the same Sunday League team as Iyseden Christie. Now, don’t get me wrong, he was great and deserved a career in football. I saw him score 10 goals in a game once. He was also comparatively very big and athletic. There were definitely a couple of lads in that team who were quicker, and more technically gifted (albeit not as strong) as he was (I saw one of them score 9 in a game) who seemingly didn’t get a sniff of pro football. Could never figure that out.

I also watched some doc about Barcelona’s youth team. Apparently the main thing they look for is ‘imagination’. Hence why you get world beaters such as Messi, xavi, iniesta.

Legia Sky Blue said:

Professional footballers are light years ahead of your average Saturday/ Sunday player. Always makes me chuckle when fans quote 'such and such' is shit as a matter of fact, when they probably can't kick a ball themselves. Was hilarious at the Ricoh when they did that half time shooting into an empty net thing, and our fans were all hopeless. Most missed on their 2nd attempt from 25 yards, while the only person I saw succeed from the half way line was Dietmar Bruck, doing it for charity, when he must have been 65. I also remember before the start of this season someone posted on here, who had played in a Leamington fans game against a CCFC old boys XI, and he seemed genuinely stunned about how good Michael Doyle was, someone who many of our fans regard as being limited in terms of football talent. It is all relative I know, but these players are not shit, even Greg Downs and Paul Edwards

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100% agree with that first line. Got to play 5 a side for a while with three ex pros, two of which were well into their 40's and you could not get near them even though the fitness levels were about the same. The technical ability of these guys was light years ahead of us and it was effortless.

Terry_dactyl said:

I remember reading Fever Pitch, and Nick Hornby makes the same point about Arsenal ‘legend’ Gus Caeser. He was the only player from the Arsenal youth team to ‘make it’, and how good he must have been to get that far, and yet was considered to be utter shite...clearly he wasn’t compared to most people.
However, I would say that if you’re paid to do nothing but kicking footballs all day then you might expect a little more from some players.
I’ve always found it interesting for those people that don’t really get a chance. I’ve heard a few ex-pros -Bryan Robson, Sol Campbell, Roy Keane immediately spring to mind - talking about how they weren’t even the best players in their school teams.

Click to expand...

I’ve told this story before so apologies to anyone who remembers it. I went to school with Andy Blair and whilst he was obviously very talented he wasn’t the best player in our year. Anyway, Andy got a trial with City and the other lad got a trial at Leicester. As you know, we took Andy Blair (who went on to make Villa’s European Cup final squad) but the other lad got rejected by Leicester. He didn’t bother pursuing a career in football after that and got a regular job selling cars.