The Heagin File
(musings of the self appointed
secretary of the 1987 back bench committee)
Snippets
Would you believe it, only one Heagin File after mentioning
how sociable our very own Peter Swan is in soccer circles, best friend of Peter Ndlovu and
Robert Ullathorne, two more examples surface. Cue Soccer am on Sky TV guests on a Saturday
morning, before the Oldham home game and question, who are your best friends in football.
The first guest was some actor from some soap thing called the ‘Royle Family’
who mentioned the Swan. Not totally surprising as this character lives in Bury, poor boy.
The second guest though was Leicester’s Neil Lennon, who also mentioned Swanny!
Suppose he’s got to do something whilst being continuously on the injured list.
Seen in a recent edition of the Fascist Graph, a small item on a
dispute between Alastair Campbell and the editor in chief of the Daily Sport Tony Livesey.
AC had moaned about some photo in the Sport of Blair’s son kissing some girlie at a
Xmas do. Can’t see what the problem was, at least it was a she. Anyway, TL invited AC
to a penalty shoot out to resolve the issue as two ‘die-hard Burnley fans’ would
do. Half time at the Turf, five penalties each, and a £1000 to charity for each goal AC
scores and TL misses. Only condition, that AC would have to wear long Stanley Matthews
type shorts. Sounds like a good idea to me, with Blair as the referee, and £5,000 to
charity for ten misses!
I salute your first-class soccer fans
So says Mr Barnett of Bedworth in Warwickshire, in a letter
to the local rag following the Coventry game. Quote verbatim for full effect.
"I attended the Coventry v Burnley game recently, and I feel
must put pen to paper. I felt the performance of your team was outstanding and the final
score-line was in no way representative of how well your team played. I have never
attended a Coventry game where the away support was so vociferous; your fans were
absolutely magnificent. The loyal Coventry fans who sat near my family and I were all of
this opinion and were very touched at the final whistle when your players acknowledged not
only the Burnley fans but Coventry supporters as well."
Makes you proud to be a Claret.
Andy Payton
Congratulations to the old boy on achieving the significant
club milestone of 50 goals for the Clarets in only 95 games in around two years. Some
strike rate, and a good number of them when we haven’t really been very good. He is
only four short of 200 career goals during spells at Hull, Middlesborough, Celtic,
Barnsley and Huddersfield.
He joins a select band of Clarets who have scored 50 or more for
the club. McIlroy, Beel, Connelly, Lochhead, Pointer and Robson all scored more than 100
goals. James, Kindon, Gordon Harris, Casper and Fletcher all contributed at least 50. All
stars every one, and Padiham’s finest deserves to be up there with them. Top man!
Wouldn’t it be nice if a Burnley lad was top club scorer, although he’d struggle
to play in to his 40’s!
Where are they now?
Whilst frequenting a recent Conference game between Woking
and Kingstonian, happened upon a largish slow centre back playing for the latter, named
Mark Harris. Played 300 league games of which four were for us, on loan, in the 1989/90
season, when both Steve Davis and Steve Gardner were injured. Didn’t remember him.
The programme made mention of young Phil Eastwood, who seems to be doing well at
Morecambe, and also another ex-claret veteran of 350+ league appearances by the name of
Gareth Williams, who can still command a five figure fee from Scarborough. Don’t
remember the latter at all, but apparently played for us.
Stan’s Transfer List
Last season, couldn’t really argue with Stan’s
choice’s for the list. Amongst the dross, Ally Pickering was a surprise, but
AP’s problems in finding another club before settling at Chester tell its own story.
Also, the jock centre half whose name I have already forgotten, was also a surprise, but
went back to the land of the Barbarians, which may or may not be slightly better than
Chester. Both getting on in years a bit.
This season though Weller, Brass and Robertson. All youngsters, all
with promise, and all have lost their way somehow. Over the past year or so for whatever
reason. they have not really featured in the first team. Robertson I have hardly seen at
all, but presumably hasn’t endeared himself to Stan with all this Socceroo nonsense..
Brassy not too long ago was considered one of the best players in the division, and was on
the verge of representative honours. Hasn’t played well though for a year or two.
Weller is a different proposition. After PW sodded off to West Ham
to supposedly better himself, and was turned down, Burnley took him back and looked after
him during and after his long period of illness. He now wants to force his way back in to
a winning team, and I have some sympathy with him in his inability to shift Dean West.
Still think it is still too early for him to moan about not getting a regular game,
particularly as he turned out at Chesterfield. My last real top memory of him will be
Luton away some time ago (two years?), when he was superb down the right flank. Will quite
miss him, if he does go.
Hego
February 2000
