5 August 1931 - 9 June 2022
Sunderland: 18 October 1950 - 24 July 1958
SAFC career: 227 appearances, 47 goals
We were saddened to hear of the death of Billy Bingham.
A huge figure in post-war football Billy won the first 33 of his 56 Northern Ireland caps while with Sunderland, the last five of them at the 1958 FIFA World Cup finals as the Irish reached the quarter-finals. He was the first Sunderland player to appear at the finals of the World Cup and at the time it made him Sunderland’s most capped international. Bingham scored four goals for his country while with the Lads – the first of them against his Sunderland team mate Willie Fraser who was in goal for Scotland at Hampden in November 1954. The 1958 World Cup wasn’t the end of Bingham’s relationship with the World Cup. In 1982 and 86 he managed Northern Ireland to the finals, in 1982 famously defeating host nation Spain as the Irish topped their group.
A nippy right-winger who could slip past his man and supply his centre-forward Bingham played in the semi-final of the FA Cup for Sunderland in 1955 and 1956, also scoring 10 times in 35 league games in the first of those two campaigns as the Bank of England team finished fourth in the top-flight. Over eight seasons from 1950-51 to 1957-58, before his World Cup adventure, Billy was a stalwart of Sunderland. The 1958 World Cup was held in Sweden but it wasn’t the first time the Swedes had witnessed how good a player Billy was. In May 1953 he had scored one of his best ever goals in a friendly for Sunderland in a 5-3 friendly win away to Malmo.
After playing for Luton – for whom he played in the 1959 FA Cup final, in 1963 he won a league title medal with Everton. A leg break two seasons later while playing for Port Vale caused his retirement after which Bingham embarked on an extensive managerial career. Beginning at Southport in the fourth division he went on to take charge of Plymouth Argyle with much of that time seeing him also manage Northern Ireland and his country’s Under 23 team. He went on to manage Linfield (Doing the quadruple in his only season in charge), the national side of Greece, Everton, PAOK Salonika and Mansfield Town before returning to manage Northern Ireland again, this time from February 1980 to November 1993, a year in which he became non-executive director of Blackpool, a role he retained until 1997. He was awarded the MBE in 1983. His biography, simply entitled ‘Billy’ was published in 1986. Diagnosed with dementia in 2006, Billy passed away in a Southport Care Home.
Rest in peace, Billy. You will never be forgotten.