| Billy Millar |
 William Millar was born on Thursday, 24th July, 1924, in Irvine, North Ayrshire. The 5' 7 (10st 1lbs) forward signed for Donald Turner's Thistle circa October, 1943, having most recently been with Annbank United. Aged 19, he made his debut appearance on Saturday, 16th October, 1943, in a 4-3 defeat away to Falkirk in the Southern League. Billy scored his first goal for Thistle on Saturday, 1st January, 1944, in a 3-2 win at home to Clyde in the Southern League. He scored the last of his 5 goals on Saturday, 16th February, 1946, in a 4-3 win at home to Falkirk in the Southern League. He played his last game for the club on Saturday, 25th May, 1946, in a 2-0 defeat away to Hibernian in the Victory Cup, having appeared as a Jag on 35 occasions. His club-list included Annbank United, Partick Thistle, Aberdeen, Stirling Albion, Buckie Thistle, Swindon Town, Gillingham, Accrington Stanley and Kettering Town. Billy died in March, 1995, in Clayton-le-Moors, Lancashire, aged 70. *
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 Billy joined Thistle as an inside forward from South Ayrshire side Annbank United in the autumn of 1943, playing his first team debut shortly thereafter. Billy played for Thistle from 1943 till 1946. The matches he unfortunately missed during this period were the Jags’ Summer Cup fixtures in 1944-45 season as the Maryhill Magyars won the cup. Willie was in the army then, and played a magnificent total of 11 representative matches for Army and Select Services sides between November 1943 and January 1946. The Army clearly didn’t want to give him up! His army service clearly interrupted his Thistle career. In Billy’s second match in Red and Yellow, Airdrie were “swamped” (according to the Sunday Post) 6-1 by the Jags, in front of a 5,000 crowd at Firhill. Billy scored the only goal in the Glasgow Cup Final against Rangers on 13th October 1934, with Thistle winning the Cup at Hampden in front of a crowd of 28,000. Thistle won a second trophy that season, the Glasgow Charity Cup, but although the Billy was in the side for the 1st Round 1-0 victory over Rangers, he wasn’t in the side for the Final where Queen’s Park were beaten by 2 goal to 1. In 1946, Billy moved on to Aberdeen, where he played on 56 occasions for the Dons, scoring 4 goals. In 1949 he joined Stirling Albion for a season, and then went south to Swindon Town. He played 75 league and 18 FA Cup matches scoring 22 goals in a 3 year spell with the club. Billy scored 2 goals in the first ever floodlit match at Swindon’s County Ground in 1951. In 1953 he joined Gillingham, with Ken Lambert travelling west in the same deal. He spent 3 years at Priestfield before heading north to join Accrington Stanley in 1956. In 1957 he ended his career at Kettering Town. On account of his service during WWII, Billy is included in our feature piece, The Partick Thistle Returned →. |
| (DMAC) |
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