Career Record for Featherstone
Appearances			Tries	Goals	Drop Goals	Points
Total	Start	Sub
108	108	0	29	65	0	217

Billy Stott gained fame as the first winner of the Lance Todd Trophy for Man of the Match in the RL Cup Final. Captaining Wakefield Trinity against Wigan in 1946, he scored two tries and two goals, his second goal giving Trinity a dramatic 13-12 victory in the closing stages. Most of Featherstone applauded this feat as Stott was Featherstone born and bred and had commenced his rugby league career with the Rovers.

He was signed from Featherstone Juniors on his seventeenth birthday, having played two trial matches in the senior team at stand-off under an assumed name of 'Owens'. At that time, the Rovers did not have a reserve team and it was straight into the senior team, but he had tremendous talent despite his youth, and he scored 2 tries and 11 goals in his 9 appearances. He sparkled in the following season with a positive maturity despite the club's lowly league position with 37 appearances and had a personal best match total of 10 points (two tries and two goals) v Bradford (at home) in April 1931. With Jim Denton still around he was, however, only the occasional goal-kicker.

His stylish play soon established him as a future star and in 1932 he moved to centre to accommodate Wilf Evans, and underlying his natural talent and skills was even more productive. As the Rovers sank to third from the bottom, he was the shining star in a dismal season and the inevitable question arose as to whether the club would be able to hang on to such talent. The answer was swift.  After only four games in the following season, he played what was to be his last game as a Rovers player at Batley on 9 September 1933. The following week he was selected to play for Yorkshire v Australia at Headingley and on that day he was transferred to Broughton Rangers for £750 - a huge amount in those days and again Rovers had had to sell a star so that the club could survive. What is not clear is whether Stott signed before or after the county match, and whether he should be listed as another Rovers county player!

He played with Broughton, then moved to Oldham and was transferred to Wakefield in 1945 for £95.  In between he did, however, manage to make 5 appearances for Featherstone as a guest player during the war years.  In an illustrious career, he played in 507 games, scoring 163 tries and 589 goals, a total of 1,667 points. He made seven appearances for Yorkshire from 1933 to 1938 and made one appearance for England v Wales at Pontypridd in November 1936. Of his many fine displays for Featherstone, his talent is perhaps best personified in the Rovers v Huddersfield game on 11 April 1933. Star-studded Huddersfield were RL Cup finalists and had won 12 of their last 13 games. Featherstone were lying at the bottom of the league with only six victories. In an amazing game which was dominated by Stott, the Rovers were only losing 8-7 with one minute to go. With one last effort, Stott received the ball on the halfway line, kicked through and speedily followed up to regain possession. One of his famous swerves took him past two defenders and as the full-back confronted him, Stott took him over the line as he scored the winning try. The crowd erupted and Stott was chaired from the field.

 

Biography by Ron Bailey