The London Clarets
'Nothing to Write Home About' - our
magazine
|
The London Clarets |
Home |
City were close to the bottom of the old First Division, having just done enough through April to avoid trouble. So, on the face of it, a Burnley side playing anywhere near its best wasn’t going to have any trouble with nothing to play for opponents. Not quite true. There was a win bonus at stake, possibly three of four quid, and a couple of nights out are a couple of nights out. I don’t think that anyone anticipated just how many people would turn up because the traffic piled up before we got anywhere near Moss Side. It soon became obvious that we were not going to see the kick-off. Remember, this was in the days when cars were nothing like as evident as they are now. Most football supporters used public transport or walked. Our coach was abandoned some distance from the ground and as we made our way along packed streets, a cheer went up from Maine Road. It was pretty loud so, always the optimist, I figured that City had decided that a couple of nights out on the town and a few bob on the horses were worth playing for. The sight of the long queues at the turnstiles was dispiriting enough, but worse was to follow. The local coppers were trying to move people away. It was a lock out! A complete circuit of the ground revealed a similar sight – until we struck gold. There it was: a turnstile marked ‘Juniors’. And it was open! The bloke operating it was sitting there, fed up, with nothing to do. Not one punter. I was a fair sized seventeen year-old and my mate was of similar proportions but we decided to chance our arm. No problem. A shilling (5p) each down on the turnstile and we were in. Why nobody else tried it, I’ll never know. Making our way up some stairs we entered the fray at the back of the big covered end and looked down at the packed arena. Maine Road has always been a big ground and the official attendance was given as 65,981. It has always amazed me that, however many bodies packed onto football terracing, the gangways always stayed clear. My mate and I walked from the very back down a gangway to the very front and then moved along the wall to the centre of the goal, not more than twenty-five feet from the action. We soon found out from the City supporters around us that the cheer we’d heard had been for Burnley’s first goal scored by Brian Pilkington after three minutes. Now, Pilky, who had been Burnley’s outside left for a number of seasons, was a tricky, very fast winger, whose exploits often found opposing full backs operating outside the Geneva Convention and himself lying face down in the mud. But centring the ball was not high among his strong points. On this occasion, having got through a tackle, he attempted to belt the ball across the face of goal. Bert Trautmann, City’s admirable goalkeeper and English football’s most famous import, to date, via Southport POW Camp, had moved from his line in anticipation of the centre. But the mishit effort squirted between him and the near post. We’d hardly had time to take in the good news when City equalised. Hayes scored from close in as the Burnley defence stood and watched and waited for offside. Game on. The tackles really started to fly in after this. City really did fancy that win bonus. Then, after about half an hour, came the move which was to make that little bit of history. A long free kick into the home defence caused a wildly sliced clearance across goal and there was John Connelly’s deputy, Trevor Meredith, swinging his left foot at the ball, which bobbled into the far corner of the net. If you were to ask me what happened after that, I would be struggling to explain. I know that half time was reached safely and that the second half lasted about two days, but it’s mainly a blank. Certainly it was tense with the tackling so fierce and the ball seemingly never in play. Whenever they could, Adamson and McIlroy would get the ball down around the corner flag and waste time. Anything to slow it down. At this time in my life, I was football daft, Burnley daft. I still can remember goals, incidents, teams, and players for and against Burnley. But that last hour is just a blur except for one incident. With very little time to go, City centred the ball from the right, and there leaping at the far post was their recent massive £53,000 signing, the young, combative Scotsman, Dennis Law. All studs and elbows, he looked a certain goalscorer but Adam Blacklaw’s stretching fingertips stopped him from wrecking Burnley’s dream. I was just twenty-five feet away. I can still see Law’s face. For years afterwards my mate would remind me, graphically, laughingly and industrially, how my face had turned an instant shade of white. At last the final whistle came. Fans ran onto the pitch. I think we joined them but again I can’t be sure. It’s worth pausing to think that, had Burnley not won that night, Wolves would have completed a hat trick of Championships and the ‘double’, for a few days later, they easily beat Blackburn Rovers at Wembley. Strangely, until that final whistle, Burnley had never been top of the League all season. Nice timing. The coach trip back from Manchester was strangely subdued to begin with. It might have been the natural flatness which follows elation, or just the fact that it hadn’t sunk in. There had been no TV coverage and no presentation of the trophy; the show biz side of football was still a long way off. For example, Ray Pointer, Burnley’s and England’s future centre forward, was described in the match programme as a ‘welder by trade’. No Porsches there then. As the coach entered Rawtenstall, one thing became apparent: people were standing in their doorways waiting for the team coach to pass. This was Clarets’ country. It was still the time when most people could relate to the club and its players; a time when little old ladies who, perhaps, had never seen a football match, could put on a clean apron and give a proud wave from their doorsteps. Corny? Perhaps. A crowd had gathered on Manchester Road outside the Town Hall to greet the surprised players, who were whisked inside to take their bows on the balcony. It wasn’t stage-managed, it was just spontaneous. Although we didn’t know it at the time, this was almost certainly the best it was ever going to be. No one standing there, cheering, could have imagined that exactly twenty-seven years later some of us would go through the emotional meat grinder to keep a poverty-stricken Burnley in the very same Football League they had just conquered. But that Monday evening it didn’t matter. At the moment the ball skewed off Brian Pilkington's boot, the Big Adjudicator decided that Burnley were going to be top of the hill. I’ve seen the very best and I’ve seen the absolute worst. And I know which I prefer.
|