Happy birthday Billy Ashcroft

[erimus74]

71 years young today

When John Neal took over at the Boro in 1977 his priority target was to sign CF Billy Ashcroft from his previous club Wrexham, after a while of negotiations Billy signed for the Boro for a club record fee of £135k, he made his debut away to West Brom on the 3rd October 1977 in a 2-1 defeat & seven days later he scored on his home debut in a 2-1 defeat to Birmingham City

Between 1977 to 1982 Billy played a total of 179 games, 22 from the bench, scoring 25 goals

He moved on to Dutch league & signed for FC Twenty, finishing his career at Tranmere Rovers

Following his football career, IIRC, he went into the pub trade & presently is a driving instructor

Billy, who started out life at the Boro as a CF dropped back to becoming a CH, played in arguably one of the best teams we have seen at our football club, which should have won silverware

Recall a former players reunion Billy took the mic & with legend John Hickton in attendance he said, he was up against it from the beginning, he came to the club to replace such a legend in John Hickton, nice words indeed

Many happy returns Billy 




[url="https://ibb.co/fDQjqt0"]

[Nosmo-King]

Happy Birthday Billy.

Got to admit not his biggest fan!

[erimus74]

Happy Birthday Billy.

Got to admit not his biggest fan!

Sadly Billy fell short of what we needed at the time to push on, John Neal thought he would be the one who would score the goals for his wonderful football vision 

[TerryCochranesSocks]

I was a massive fan of Big Billy. If I scored a header playing in the park or a back garden I would shout "Ashcroft!"
I told him this on Twitter, we follow each other now.

[Johnny Thunder]

Happy Birthday Billy lad.