I’ve been good and bad so I’m the best to learn from.”īilly has come a long way since the death of his mum, Bella, finally gave him the inspiration to get clean. I was a good example in the beginning and then turned bad. You need examples - you need good examples and bad examples, bad examples to learn off. If they can listen and people are talking about me like that then they have got to take something from it and if they do not they are fools. He said: “It didn’t really bother me to be honest. Now, he wants to take ownership of his story. During those grim years, Billy became the template warning for every young player growing up in the city. As overwhelmed as he was by his vices he at least had an awareness he was unsuitable while addiction controlled him.
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I’ll tell these kids and if I can save a couple of them I will… I’m drug free now, I’m alcohol free and I am ready to go into schools.”īilly had this opportunity once before, he says, revealing the Football Association sought him out for such a role just over 20 years ago. It is something that I am passionate about and I want to do. “I’ll put the derby game on for them and say two years later from that game, because I had been a naughty boy, I ended up on drink and drugs and in rehab thinking my life was over. “I’ve got a great story,” Billy tells the ECHO. With this new-found perspective he hopes he can make a difference - whether that be in schools or football academies or both. After years living as an urban myth of football downfalls he has turned his life around and has an understanding of what went wrong. By 21 a toxic combination of injury, addiction and what he now knows to have been depression forced his retirement.
At 19 he lived his dream, starring for his beloved Everton in a Merseyside derby win. READ MORE: What Sean Dyche thinks of Neal Maupay as Everton striker's agent hints at moveįor Billy, the hope is his experiences can have an impact. Even more so now that, after losing two decades of his life to cocaine and alcohol, he is sober to tell it.īILLY'S STORY: 'I am surprised I am alive' - Everton star retired at 21, lost years to cocaine but turned life around after tragedy Whenever a Wayne Rooney or a Ross Barkley or an Anthony Gordon - or even a Steven Gerrard or a Trent Alexander-Arnold - has been on the cusp of breaking into one of this city's first teams, Billy is the case study of how things can still go wrong.īilly is not just fine with this.
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Billy Kenny does not mind being a cautionary tale.įor years he has been the bad example, the horror story told as a warning to up-and-coming stars to show that realising their full potential is not inevitable.
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