The son of a coal miner, Bill Boyd began his working life as a tube fitter in the Clyde shipyards and, while playing for junior side Larkhill Thistle, topped 200 goals in the space of just three seasons. Such prodigious scoring earned him a contract with Clyde in the Scottish First Division and, pretty soon, a couple of Scotland caps, in the second of which he scored. He was 28 before he ventured into the Football League – he scored six goals in just four games in a short sojourn with Manchester United – and 30 when he reached Southampton.

His transfer fee of £500 was to be paid in installments: £350 down and the balance at the end of the season – provided that he had made 21 appearances. On 2 January 1937, he played his 19th game, having missed only five. He decided to get leave, however, from the training camp in Surrey, where the Southampton players were preparing for their Third Round FA Cup-tie. In sending himself a telegram, allegedly from, Sarah his wife, he failed to allow for the Surrey postmark. His contract was terminated and he left League football for good. Soon after, he was jailed for non-payment of taxes but, thanks to the benevolence of the PFA, he was released and collected by his ex-Southampton teammates.

In March 1938, he was also fined £5 for child neglect in Glasgow Sheriff’s Court. All this paints a picture of a man struggling to stay on the right side of the tracks.

There were a couple of sightings of him during WW2. Ex-Dell colleague, Bill Moore, now a policeman in Southampton, had cause to admonish a drunken man in the streets. That man was Bill Boyd. Also there is a snippet in the Sunday Post of 6 February 1944 with a letter from Jimmy Boyd, ex Newcastle and Scotland, where he says that he has been turning out for Clapton Orient, and “I have my namesake, Billy Boyd of Clyde at inside-right (see scrapbook section), he is stationed in the South”.

It appears he had joined the Royal Regiment of Artillery in 1940. He transferred to another Corps in 1946, only to be finally discharged in 1954. What happened to him after that is not known other than he died in Bristol of a heart attack aged 62. he must have been living on his own as his son had to come down from Rutherglen to register the death. His wife died in 1978.