Billy Heath
British footballer (1869-?)
William Joseph Michael , better known as Billy Heath (1869 – after 1895), was an English footballer who played in the Football League for Wolverhampton Wanderers and Woolwich Arsenal. He is best known for having scored the first-ever penalty kick awarded in the Football League, doing it so in a match between Wolves and Accrington at Molineux Stadium on 14 September 1891, which Wolves won 5–0.
The public source identifies “Billy Heath” as british footballer (1869-?). This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Billy, Heath and British.
Why this record matters
A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “Billy Heath”, the useful work is to connect “british footballer (1869-?)” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.
The entry’s evidential value lies in the named roles, institutions and publications that can be tested against primary documentation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 4, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q4912694. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1869, 1895 and 1891.
A concise life account rarely captures disputed attribution, private networks or the changing language used to describe a career. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
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- Establishing names and roles
- Building a first chronology
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Personal papers, civil or court records, institutional files and the scholarship cited by the source.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Billy Heath”, its source revision and the description used here.
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Questions for further research
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Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “Billy Heath” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.