Billy knew little about the bids his goals brought in
It looks like Aberdeen will be reshaping their squad under new manager Jim Goodwin.
The club has released Scott Brown and others look certain to depart in the near future.
A different challenge for a boss is other teams looking to buy your best players.
Billy Little was a man in demand 60 years ago but he didn’t know much about it.
He hit 24 goals for Aberdeen in season 196162 – a total not surpassed by a Dons’ player until Joe Harper with 27 nine seasons later.
Billy recalled: “That was one of my best two seasons during my 12 years at Aberdeen.
“I only knew about most of it from what I read in the newspapers.
“Bobby Ancell was keen to take me to Motherwell but I had just got married and bought a house in Aberdeen. That’s a move that would have really suited me.
“There was also talk about Arsenal, Everton and Norwich City being keen.
“Things might have been different for me if I’d been given the chance to go to England.
“But life has changed a lot since then. You didn’t get told about inquiries from other clubs in my day.
“I know Kilmarnock were also interested. “Their manager, Willie Waddell, came for talks and there were some encouraging noises but it was another move that didn’t happen.”
Billy is 10th in the list of the Dons’ all- time scorers but contributed a lot more with his intelligent play. He said: “Although I scored a lot of goals that season, I was then moved out to the wing.
“Our manager, Tommy Pearson, preferred a big, bustling 6ft- plus centre- forward and that wasn’t me.
“Ernie Winchester was brought into the team around that time.”
Billy had a host of teams on his tail when he was still a schoolboy in Dumfries.
He said: “In 1957 I played for Scotland Schoolboys in a 3-0 win against England, in the same side as Billy Mcneill and Craig Brown.
“Three years before that, I’d been in the Under-14 team that played Northern Ireland in Belfast. The reserve for that game was a wee guy with glasses from Aberdeen – Denis Law.
“I then had offers from Rangers and Celtic, along with Motherwell and Everton.
“But legendary Aberdeen scout Bobby Calder came to my house with a bunch of flowers for my mother and sealed the deal.
“It was a club that had not long won the league and I was getting the chance to go straight into a top-class reserve team.
“Aberdeen lost the likes of Archie Glen, Graham Leggat and Paddy Buckley while I was starting out.
“The club tried bringing in other players but they proved difficult to replace.”
“Goals make everything better in football,” he said.
“In 1962, we drew 2- 2 with Clyde in the Scottish Cup and then beat them 10- 3 in the replay.
“Later that year, we beat Raith Rovers 10-1. “I played less for Aberdeen in the late 1960s when Eddie Turnbull was manager. I went parttime to study at university and that didn’t go down well with Eddie.
“My last game in red was a 2- 0 win at Celtic Park in 1969 where we beat a team that included Kenny Dalglish to win the reserve cup final.”
A move to Australia fell through and Billy then signed for Highland League club Inverness Caledonian.
He said: “I was doing teacher training and being part-time put a few clubs off.
“I was an English teacher for 30 years, so I think I was right in sticking with it.”
He continued his playing career with Falkirk, Stirling Albion and East Stirlingshire.
It was then into management with Falkirk, Queen of the South, Alloa and twice at East Stirling.
Billy, now 82, said: “The best player I signed was Gary Gillespie, who’d been a pupil of mine. I gave him £ 50 to join Falkirk and we sold him to Coventry for £75,000.”