Billie “Farmer’s Boy” Haines had become something of a legend during his long spell with Portsmouth, the Fratton crowd often voicing their approval for this son of Wiltshire with a rendition of the popular refrain “To be a Farmer’s boy”. He was certainly

a centre-forward with a style of his own.

You were never likely to see him dashing around the field and he seldom, if ever, tried to hit the ball hard, preferring instead to place it with tantalising precision his penalties were taken in a similar fashion. His admirable tally of 119 goals in 165 games for Pompey and involvement in their two promotion seasons of 1924 and 1927 contributed to the Pompey’s Who’s Who view that he was “one of the club’s greatest assets”.

Despite being plagued by injuries during his four years at The Dell he still managed to be top scorer in two of those seasons, notching a creditable 47 goals in 70 games.

While at the club he also ran a paper shop in St Mary’s Road and in 1931 was reprimanded for living in licensed premises. In 1932 he moved to Weymouth where if anything his appetite for finding the net flourished (275 goals in 205 games). In 1935 Willie officialised his public house abode arrangements by becoming mine host at the Vine Inn, Frome, and was landlord until 1949. In 1948 his wife rather unflatteringly revealed in the Hampshire Telegraph that he was struggling with his weight, he “was corpulent and bald and looked more like a farmer than ever”. Whether or not she was joking is not clear but she further stuck the knife in by adding she always reckoned he was ” a little on the slow side to have been a centre-forward”. Around this time he had a taxi business and co-owned a dry cleaners in Frome. In 1960 he became president of the Portsmouth Supporters club.