Billy Warburton

One of several Manchester born players signed during the mid—1920s,Warburton was a product of the Bradford Parish team in the junior leagues.A good runner who wished he had been of stockier build, he served his time as a fitter at Mather and Platt’s before making his Football League début — along with fellow-Mancunian Bill Robinson — on Good Friday 1928. He deserved much credit for Southport’s opening goal (officially a Chesterfield ‘own goal’) and was retained for the Saturday game v. Halifax.Though Southport won both and retained him (as an amateur) for 1928—29,he never again saw first team action; he scored his only goal in a 4—2 victory over Dick, Kerr’s in the Lancashire Combination. During the Second World War he worked in the middle east as a pump fitter, later returning to Mather and Platt’s where he became a very conscientious inspector, affectionately known as ‘Two Thou Warby’! He worked five years up to 70 in the apprentice school but was ill through his three years of retirement, dying of pneumonia in Tameside Hospital