Poor Scouser Billy bid farewell to Leeds today as he moved to Doncaster.

William Paul Paynter finally drew a line under two disastrous years at Elland Road with a move to Doncaster.

When we narrowly lost to Premier League bound Southampton last March, the subs bench said it all about our respective ambitions. They had Billy Sharp, we had Billy Paynter!

Really it was doomed from the start, Paynter was expected to fill the gigantic shooting boots vacated by Jermaine Beckford.

Also, I wonder if Billy was dogged by Scouse Sterotyping...by this I don't mean the one about being a cheeky, work shy layabout because if nothing else he did try his best whilst at Leeds.

Fans of a certain vintage such as I remember the days when the Liver bird ruled the roost in English football and on the very rare occasions the Reds slipped up, their cross Stanley Park neighbours Everton provided the perfect stand-in.

Maybe we are guilty to assume that because Billy hailed from the Pool he was naturally a gifted footballer and maybe there is some musical or comedy talent hidden in that giant frame of his!

However for every Beatle there are ten Reynolds Girls! Remember that uniquely low musical ebb in 89 even from the Stock, Aitken and Waterman gruesome standards?

On ITV catchup the other night, I watched a rerun of an episode of "The Big Match" from February 1983 when runaway league leaders Liverpool drew 1-1 at second place Manchester United. In that great team it struck me not many of those lads were Liverpudlians....Dalglish, Hansen and Souness are Scots, Rush is Welsh, Craig Johnson an Australia and Brucie Grobellaar hailed from Zimbabwe. I assumed Alan Kennedy was a local, must have been the tasche and mullet, but he hails from the north east. Sammy Lee was playing and also a Scouser.

There will be an eternal dollop of goodwill and sympathy towards Billy from us Leeds fans. Any fleeting suspicion that Neil Warnock had dropped a clanger by allowing him to go to Blackpool on trial soon disappeared. No doubt there were many amongst us who woke up in a cold sweat having endured a nightmare, a vision of 15 days from now when a Tangerine shirted Billy ghosts past Jason Pearce and slides the ball beneath Paddy Kenny for his hat-trick!

However poor Billy would have probably made a better impression had he turned up at Blackpool North Station escorted from the Transpennine Express by the BTP, dragging on a B&H, swigging from a bottle of "Frosty Jack" and singing "I'd rather jack than Fleetwood Mac...". His truncated time at Bloomfield Road on,y succeeded in reducing Ian Holloway, a man who usually spouts more shit than a sewerage farm to make a snap decision and Blackpool's loss will be Donny's gain.

Alas I never saw the Beatles, thankfully I never saw the Reynolds Girls either...some of Billy's 27 shifts in a Leeds shirt may be remembered as pure comedy, on the subject of Scouse wit am I the only person who thinks John Bishop is at best average?

But I did see Billy bag a brace against Peterborough United in Neil Warnock's only Elland Road win to date and will never forget when Billy Barndoor became Billy Van Basten!

Cheers la' - good luck at Donny!

Photo: Action Images via Reuters