Billy Caskey

Last updated

Billy Caskey
Personal information
Full name William Thomas Caskey
Date of birth (1953-10-12) 12 October 1953 (age 70)
Place of birth Belfast, Northern Ireland
Height 5 ft 10 in (1.78 m)
Position(s) Forward / Midfielder
Senior career*
YearsTeamApps(Gls)
1972–1974 Crusaders
1974 East Belfast
1974–1978 Glentoran 79 (36)
1978 → Tulsa Roughnecks (loan) 27 (11)
1978–1980 Derby County 28 (3)
1980–1984 Tulsa Roughnecks 128 (22)
1979–1983 Tulsa Roughnecks (indoor) 42 (31)
1984–1985 Glentoran 24 (5)
1985 Tulsa Roughnecks (exhibition)
1985–1986 Dallas Sidekicks (indoor) 42 (26)
1986–1993 Glentoran 236 (51)
1994–1996 Dundela (10)
Abbey Villa
International career
1978–1982 Northern Ireland 7 (1)
*Club domestic league appearances and goals

Billy Caskey (born 10 December 1954 in Belfast) is a retired professional soccer midfielder from Northern Ireland. He played in the Irish Football League, Football League, North American Soccer League and Major Indoor Soccer League. He also earned seven caps, scoring one goal, with the Northern Ireland national football team between 1978 and 1982.

Contents

Club career

Caskey began his career with Crusaders [1] and East Belfast before moving to Glentoran in October 1974. Caskey played for Glentoran until 1978. He was named as the Northern Ireland Football Writers' Association Player of the Year for the 1976/77 season. [2] In the summer of 1978, the team sent him on loan to the Tulsa Roughnecks of the North American Soccer League. When he returned to Glentoran in the fall, the team sent him and Victor Moreland to Derby County for £90,000. He played two seasons for Derby County, going on loan with Tulsa in 1979. In 1980, Derby County sold his contract to the Roughnecks. In 1983, Tulsa won the NASL championship, but Caskey was sidelined with a broken leg. In the fall of 1984, Caskey returned to Glentoran where he won the 1985 Irish Cup. In the spring of 1985, he returned to the United States and played for the Roughnecks who were now an independent team following the collapse of the NASL. In the fall, he signed with the Dallas Sidekicks of Major Indoor Soccer League. He holds the record for most penalty minutes (34) in the MISL whilst plying for the Dallas Sidekicks. Caskey was suspended from the MISL on 11 August 1986 for three seasons after assaulting a referee during Game 4 of the Dallas Sidekicks Eastern Division Semi-final series with Minnesota Strikers in 1986. This ended his indoor career. He was the first Sidekick ever to be ejected from a playoff game and to be expelled from the league. [3] He returned to Northern Ireland and played with Glentoran until 1993. A year later, he signed with Dundela and completed his professional career with them in 1996. He then played with amateur teams, including Abbey Villa F.C. until 2005 when a knee injury forced him into retirement.

National team

On 11 November 1978, Caskey earned the first of his international caps, and scored his first and only goal, with the Northern Ireland national football team in a 2–0 victory over Bulgaria. He went on to play seven times with Northern Ireland, his last game coming in a 4–0 loss to France on 24 March 1982.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Major Indoor Soccer League (1978–1992)</span> Indoor soccer league in the United States

The Major Indoor Soccer League (MISL), known in its final two seasons as the Major Soccer League, was an indoor soccer league in the United States that played matches from fall 1978 to spring 1992.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tulsa Roughnecks (1978–1984)</span> Defunct American soccer club

The Tulsa Roughnecks (1978–1984) were a North American Soccer League (NASL) team from Tulsa, Oklahoma. It played its home games at Skelly Stadium on the campus of the University of Tulsa. The team, previously Team Hawaii, moved to Tulsa after the 1977 season. In 1983, Alex Skotarek became general manager and led one of the lowest-budgeted teams in the NASL to a championship, defeating Toronto, 2–0, at Soccer Bowl '83.

Terence "Terry" Moore is a former Canadian national soccer team, NASL, and Irish League player.

Brian Quinn is a Northern Irish-American soccer coach and former player. He spent most of his professional career in North America where he played in the North American Soccer League and Major Indoor Soccer League. He later coached in the Continental Indoor Soccer League and Major League Soccer.

Keith Weller was an English footballer who played as a midfielder or striker. He is considered to be one of Leicester City's greatest-ever players.

Billy Gazonas is a former U.S. soccer midfielder who won the 1977 Hermann Trophy as the top collegiate soccer player of the year. He played four seasons in the North American Soccer League and several in Major Indoor Soccer League.

Njego Pesa is a former American soccer forward who played in the North American Soccer League and Major Indoor Soccer League. He earned seven caps with the U.S. national team.

Don Droege is a former U.S. soccer defender who played seven seasons in the North American Soccer League and three seasons in the Major Indoor Soccer League. He also earned eight caps with the U.S. national team between 1977 and 1979.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Neil Cohen</span> American professional soccer player (born 1955)

Neil Cohen is a former U.S. soccer defender. He played eight seasons in the North American Soccer League and six in the Major Indoor Soccer League. He also earned one cap with the U.S. national team in 1976. In 2008, Neil was elected to the FC Dallas, "Texans Credit Union Walk of Fame" for his contributions to soccer in Texas.

Jeffrey Albert Bourne was an English footballer who played as a striker. Born in Linton, Derbyshire, he spent most of his early career in the lower English divisions before moving to the United States where he played six seasons in the North American Soccer League, two in the second division American Soccer League. He led the ASL in scoring in 1983.

Terry Woodberry, also spelled as Terry Woodbury, is a former English-American football (soccer) midfielder who spent his entire career playing indoor soccer in the United States. He was also a member of the U.S. Futsal team which took second place at the 1992 FIFA Futsal World Cup.

Stuart Lee is an English former football forward. Lee was born in Manchester, and played professionally in England, Wales and the United States.

Lawrence Adam Michael Abrahams is an English retired professional footballer who played as a striker in England, the United States, and Australia. In a career which lasted from 1977 to 1987, Abrahams played 283 career league games, and scored 142 league goals.

Victor "Vic" Moreland is a retired professional footballer from Northern Ireland who began his career in Northern Ireland, spent two seasons in the Football League before moving to the United States. He then played six seasons in the North American Soccer League, seven in the Major Indoor Soccer League as well as several seasons in several lower division indoor and outdoor leagues.

Barry Daniel Wallace was an English football midfielder who played professionally in the Football League, North American Soccer League and Major Indoor Soccer League. After his retirement from playing, Wallace spent the rest of his life coaching youth soccer teams.

Caesar Cervin is a retired American soccer midfielder. He played professionally in the Major Indoor Soccer League, United Soccer League and Southwest Indoor Soccer League (SISL). He later coached teams in the SISL where he was the 1991 Coach of the Year, USISL, Lone Star Soccer Alliance and was a fourteen-year assistant coach with the Dallas Sidekicks.

North American Soccer League (NASL) was a professional soccer league with teams in the United States and Canada that operated from 1968 to 1984. Beginning in 1975, the league final was called the Soccer Bowl.

José Márcio Pereira da Silva , better known in the United States as Zequinha is a Brazilian former footballer, who played as a forward in Brazil and the United States.

The 1979 NASL Budweiser Indoor Soccer Invitational was a four-team indoor soccer tournament held at the Bayfront Center in St. Petersburg, Florida on the final weekend of January 1979.

Tibor Molnar is a Hungarian former footballer who played as a midfielder in the North American Soccer League, the Canadian National Soccer League, and the Major Indoor Soccer League in the 1970s and early 1980s.

References

  1. ↑ "Glamour clash as Ulster Cup starts". Belfast Telegraph. 18 August 1972. p. 20.
  2. ↑ M. Brodie (ed.), Northern Ireland Soccer Yearbook 2009–2010, p. 102. Belfast:Ulster Tatler Publications
  3. ↑ Dallas Sidekicks player profile
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.