When looking back on this season Burnley
supporters would be left asking ‘if only’. Having been promoted the previous
season as Second Division champions, many people felt that Burnley might struggle. They
were wrong.
Peter Noble, who had played against Burnley and scored in the League
Cup semi-final of two seasons ago, was signed from Swindon Town for £35,000. What a
bargain he proved to be. There were still problems; right back Mick Docherty was
struggling with a knee injury which restricted him to only two first team games, and Frank
Casper would also have similar problems during the season, restricting him to only
fourteen games.
The season started with a tour down South with games against
Penzance, Torquay and Kettering and the first competitive game was a Charity
Shield match against Manchester City at Maine Road. Burnley triumphed 1-0 with a goal
from Colin Waldron and this early success was just a taste of things to come as the
Clarets won four and drew three of their first seven games of the season. By
mid-September, Burnley were third.
Further success followed in the Texaco Cup. Paul Fletcher scored a
hat-trick against East Fife at Turf Moor as Burnley won 7-0 (10-2 on aggregate) and Hearts
were also beaten 8-0 on aggregate. A slip up occurred in the League Cup as, after
defeating Cardiff 3-2 in a replay, Plymouth Argyle came to Turf Moor and duly won 2-1, Ray
Hankin scoring for Burnley and Paul Mariner scoring for Argyle.
Burnley continued the good league run and by Christmas were third
and in the final of the Texaco Cup after beating Norwich. Norwich must have been sick of
Burnley as the Clarets chalked up three consecutive wins over the Canaries in the space of
two weeks. A superb Boxing Day win over Liverpool at Turf Moor
(2-1, Fletcher and Hankin) also included a certain Kevin Keegan blasting a penalty wide of
the Burnley goal. The team was playing better than ever with Alan Stevenson, Martin
Dobson, Paul Fletcher and Leighton James all regularly playing Under 23 and full
internationals for their countries.
It was, though, the FA Cup which caught the people’s
imagination and, with the early round wins over Grimsby away 2-0 and Oldham away 4-1, a
good run looked on. Aston Villa came to Turf Moor and just under 30,000 people saw Burnley
win 1-0 with a Paul Fletcher goal, seeing them through to the quarter finals. Wrexham, who
had been causing one or two cup upsets, were the next team to visit Burnley, and Frank
Casper, playing only his third game after a long lay-off due to that fateful tackle by
Cyril Knowles, scored, and the twin towers of Wembley beckoned Burnley. The semi-final
draw matched Burnley with Newcastle United, the game to be played at Hillsborough.
Whilst the cup run was in full swing, league form was slipping, and
away defeats at QPR, Liverpool and Chelsea meant that by March Burnley had dropped to
eighth. But the week before the semi-final, the Clarets produced probably their best ever
display, maybe only second to the 1982-83 Milk Cup win at Tottenham. Leeds
United had, the previous week, failed to equal the Clarets’ thirty match unbeaten
run of 1920-21, when they lost at Stoke. Goals from Paul Fletcher (2), Doug Collins and
Geoff Nulty completed a rout of Revie’s men. If only Burnley could repeat this score
next week in the semi-final!
It was not to be. Perhaps they peaked too early? Perhaps the keen
young Ray Hankin should have played the whole game instead of the unfit Frank Casper? Who
knows? Leighton James confidently predicted a 2-0 win for Burnley. Instead, Malcolm
MacDonald scored two goals to give the Magpies a 2-0 victory in front of a crowd of
55,000. To make matters worse, Newcastle also beat the Clarets in the Texaco Cup Final,
and yet on April 10th, Burnley went to St. James’ Park for a league game
and goals from Martin Dobson and Geoff Nulty gave the Clarets a 2-1 win. There was some
consolation in that Burnley won the third place play-off with Leicester City at Filbert
Street, with Ray Hankin scoring the only goal of the game.
Burnley ended the season in sixth place, beaten to a place in the
UEFA Cup by Stoke City on goal average.
Towards the end of the season, three young players were introduced
into the first team: defenders Ian Brennan and Billy Rodaway, and a diminutive midfield
player from Wales called Brian Flynn. One was left wondering, though, if the club had
signed one or two more quality players, the ‘Team of the Seventies’ tag might
have come true.
