331 Billy Dickinson

Biography

Experienced forward Billy Dickinson had already scored over 200 goals in a senior career that entered its fifteenth year when he signed for Ernie Blackburn’s Hull City in May 1938. He started two games at inside right in early September before dropping out of the side and didn’t return to first team action until Christmas Eve 1938. A run of 12 winter starts at centre forward yielded Dickinson his five goals for the Tigers, all scored in four matches. Firstly on 14 January 1938 the Tigers beat Carlisle United 11-1 with Dickinson scoring a hattrick, a match likely to be City’s record senior victory for many decades to come. The following week Dickinson scored again as the Tigers beat Lincoln City 4-2, then two weeks later Billy netted in a 6-1 defeat of Accrington Stanley. He remained around the first team for the rest of the season and started five more games without scoring before leaving the Tigers, and hanging up his boots, in the 1939 close season.

William Dickinson was born in Wigan, as a teenager he played local football for New Springs FC before joining Division Three North side Wigan Borough as an amateur in 1924. At the start of the 1925/26 season he began to play for Borough’s reserves and by late September 1925 he had forced his way into the first team. His impact was rapid and remarkable – he scored his first goals when he netted a brace in his second start against Accrington Stanley, struck a New Years Day hattrick against Wrexham, netted four times in an April 1926 5-0 thumping of Nelson and ended his inaugural season with 20 goals in 30 senior starts (to which he added a handful of further goals in the Manchester Senior Cup).

A first team fixture for the next two seasons, Dickinson continued to score at an incredible rate – in 1926/27 season he netted 30 senior goals including hattricks against Hartlepools United and Walsall, then struck another 17 goals the following season including a March 1928 hattrick against Durham City. This form inevitably attracted the attention of higher placed clubs and in June 1928 he joined Division Two side Nottingham Forest. He made five starts for Forest in September and October 1928 and netted five times before an internal complaint that required surgery kept him out of the side for the rest of the season.

Billy returned to the Forest first team at the start of the 1929/30 season and showed he his versatility by playing a centre forward, both inside forward positions and outside left over the course of a couple of months before again missed a big chunk of the season between October and mid-February due to injury. After a slow start to the 1930/31 season Dickinson finally established himself as a first team regular from November 1930 and scored 17 goals in 21 starts including an April 1931 hattrick against Charlton Athletic. Dickinson missed only a handful of matches over the next two seasons, scoring 22 and 15 goals respectively as Forest challenged at the upper end of the Second Division table. In the 1933/34 season he started well and scored a hattrick against Bury in November 1933, but dropped out of the side in the run-up to Christmas 1933 and was used sparingly until the end of the season. Dickinson left Forest in August 1934 having scored 74 goals in 143 starts for the City Ground side.

Dickinson joined Rotherham United in August 1934, in two seasons at Millmoor he scored 44 times in 77 starts for the Division Three North side including an August 1934 debut goal against Chesterfield, a run of 12 goals in 10 starts during March and April 1935 and a similar run of 16 goals in 14 starts between September and December 1935. Despite these scoring feats, Dickinson was allowed to join Division Three South side Southend United in May 1936 and goals continued to flow – during two seasons he scored 31 times in 68 starts ahead of his move to Hull City in May 1938.

After hanging up his boots Dickinson living in the Nottinghamshire town of Newark, where he died in December 1968.

Details

Nationality: England
Date/Place of Birth: 18 February 1906, Wigan
Hull City First Game: 3 September 1938, Bradford City H (Division Three North), 32 years, 197 days old
Hull City Final Game: 10 April 1939, Halifax Town A (Division Three North), 33 years, 51 days old

Clubs

New Springs FC, Wigan Borough (1924-1928), Nottingham Forest (1928-1934), Rotherham United (1934-1936), Southend United (1936-1938), Hull City (1938-1939)

Hull City Record

Career: 19 apps, 5 goals

Billy Dickinson

Season	LGE App	LGE Gls	FAC App	FAC Gls	FLC App	FLC Gls	EUR App	EUR Gls	OTH App	OTH Gls
1938/39	18	5	-	-	-	-	-	-	1	0