[Lord Snooty]

June 11:

Another marmite player has a birthday today. Love him or loathe him, it's a happy birthday today to Phillip Billing, formerly of this parish, but now residing in that quiet little seaside town of Boscombe.

He was born in Copenhagen on this date in 1996 and is 26 today. He left his Danish home at the age of 17 to come and play for us, well our youth team and I remember watching him in an FA Youth Cup match and thinking "Wow"!

He showed glimpses of Wow when he made our first team, including some spectacular goals. He was Young Player of the Season on three occasions. But since moving to Bornmuff, he has really hit the Wowzers button. Especially last season, adding regular goal contributions to his game as well.

He burnt his bridges with many Town fans though and a lot were glad to see him go. This was after a fall out with Jan Siewert, which saw the gangly twerp throw his toys out of the pram.

He was though, an important member of the back up squad for the promotion season, who became a regular in the Premier League and David Wagner certainly loved him. I definitely don't blame him for what happened and wish he was still a Town player. I don't think man management was one of Jan's strong points.

So what are your thoughts on young Billabong?

Goalkeeper Ray Wood was born on this date in 1931. His birthplace was Hebburn in South Tyneside and it was at Newcastle where he first tried to make it as a professional footballer. He didn't quite make it and went to Darlington. However, he was soon back in the big league when still only 18 years old, he was signed on by Manchester United.

He had nine seasons at Old Trafford, winning the league title twice and getting an FA Cup runners up medal. That FA Cup Final was in 1957 against Aston Villa. Ray was on the losing side, with Villa winning 2-1, but Ray didn't concede. That's because he had his jaw broken by a challenge in the 6th minute, in the days before keepers were over protected. He went off with Jackie Blanchflower going in goal, but came back on and played on the wing, with his broken jaw. No substitutes back then. But with United two goals down, Ray went back in goal for the final seven minutes, in which time they pulled one back.

And then things got worse. Firstly, he lost his place in the side when Matt Busby signed Harry Gregg, but then half the team got killed in a plane crash in Munich, that you may have heard about. Harry and Ray both survived, Ray with just minor injuries and was sold later on that year to Huddersfield Town, signed by Busby's mate Bill Shankly.

Ray stayed at Leeds Road for seven unspectacular seasons, playing 223 games for the Town, sharing the goalkeeper's gloves with Harry Fearnley and then John Oldfield. He then went off to play in Canada, came back to play for Bradford City and Barnsley before going into management. Not in England though. All his managerial roles were abroad, in places such as United States, Ireland, Zambia, Canada, Greece, Kenya, Kuwait and United Arab Emirates.

On retirement, he came back to England and died in Bexhill-on-Sea in 2002, aged 71.