For Burnley are a credit to the Football League. All right, their chairman, Bob Lord, has upset some people with his outspoken statements, but give Bob Lord his due. He has proved that the small-town club can live alongside its bigger brethren, and if Bob Lord ever stands up and demands, "Show me a club which has produced finer young players than Burnley," he will be met with stony silence.

Burnley run on a shoestring. They can never get big gates because the population of the whole town is only 85,000, and it isn't all that easy for people to get into the town from the surrounding districts. So if Burnley average 15,000 people at each home game, that represents 176 per cent of the population. To achieve that sort of percentage, Manchester United would have to average over 120,000 people at their home games.

But it is all right to talk glibly abut Burnley's high percentage of support. The facts of life are that 15,000 people cannot provide the income that a First Division side needs to survive. Watching football is just about the cheapest entertainment in this country. Nowhere in the world do the fans get such a square deal. Yet our wages and our costs are among the highest. So for Burnley, every day is a crisis day. Should there be a weakness in the side, Jimmy Adamson cannot go running to his directors asking for money to buy someone to plug the gap. On the contrary, the directors are more likely to approach Jimmy Adamson asking him which player he could spare to put on the transfer list so that the club can survive.

For Burnley do survive, and every penny that comes into the club's banking account is spent on the supporters, either in comforts or in the production of the most amazing list of skilled youngsters the game has ever seen. Just think of the players Burnley have transferred. There was Jimmy McIlroy (once the idol of the club), Harry Potts (who came back to be manager), Gordon Harris, Willie Morgan, Andy Lochhead, Ray Pointer, Alex Elder, Brian O'Neill. The list is endless. For Burnley have to sell someone every year to balance the books.

But Bob Lord maintains that the club does not sell its best players. He claims that nobody leaves Burnley until the club wants him to leave. And if you think back to how players have fared after they have left Burnley, you have to agree that Bob Lord isn't really shooting a line. How do Burnley do it? They obviously have an army of scouts who really know their job, and when the raw material arrives at Turf Moor they have the people who can knock off the rough edges and turn the youngsters into fine footballers.

But it isn't done at Turf Moor, where the club plays its matches. It is done at Gawthorpe Hall on the outskirts of the town. When training grounds were only pipedreams in top-class football, Burnley were using Gawthorpe Hall, which is now thirteen years old, a monument to the foresight of this wonderful club which has to count every single penny. There is no financial leeway at Burnley. The players are well paid. The staff is well paid. But after the wages bill is settled there is little left over for luxuries. Yet the Burnley directors still think of the comforts of their supporters.

Burnley, then, have become a footballing miracle. They are a club which can never take enough money at the turnstiles to pay the mountainous costs of a First Division club. And yet they have managed to stay in the race and to produce some of England's finest players. For this they can thank the loyalty and the dedication of their staff, which is trained to work on a shoestring and to keep going in face of every sort of adversity. Take last season, for instance. With the resources at a bare minimum, the club suffered two tremendous blows right at the start. Martin Dobson was put out of action. So, too, was their bright goalkeeping star, Peter Mellor. Most clubs, even in the humbler divisions, would have gone out and bought an experienced goalkeeper, but that is a luxury Burnley don't reckon they can afford.

They looked around and found that Tony Waiters was willing to join their coaching staff. Waiters had been a splendid goalkeeper for Blackpool before he retired in order to devote his time to coaching. He spent some time on the Liverpool staff. So he was persuaded to go to Turf Moor, where Burnley registered him as a player and used him so effectively in their crisis. His form proved that he had retired much too soon.

Little went right for Burnley last season, and yet everyone agreed that their team had potential which defied description. There was Ralph Coates, a player many good judges felt would have been an asset to England in Mexico, and Coates played better and better as the season went on. He could graft in midfield and he could operate as an orthodox wingman or an out-and out striker. Coates was, in fact, the complete player.

Around him he had youngsters who all promised to improve and to grow into real footballers of the highest class. Martin Dobson, for instance, had been a striker with Bolton Wanderers, who gave him a free transfer. Burnley made sure that he slotted into a defensive role without ever forgetting that he could come through from a deep position to score. The youngsters abound at Turf Moor. Steve Kindon, Michael Docherty (the son of Tommy Docherty, who found fame at nearby Preston), Colin Waldron (who began at Bury, went to Chelsea and soon afterwards turned up at Burnley), Dave Thomas. All of them are youngsters of the highest potential. Perhaps too early in their careers they have been called upon to do a man's job, and although they have struggled - whoever thought they would do otherwise - they have shown that potentially they are real stars.

The creed at Burnley is teamwork and dedication and devotion to the club. There isn't any hint of a star system. Anyone who thinks he is bigger than the club is shown the door immediately. Anyone who doesn't want to eat, drink and sleep Burnley Football Club won't find a place for himself. Many people have wondered when the supply of youngsters would dry up, but so far there is no hint of that happening. On the contrary, the best judges in the game believe that Burnley only have to buy time. If they can struggle on for another couple of seasons, and if the directors can keep balancing the budget without too many outgoings in the way of players, Burnley could once again become a power in the land. Certainly the trials and tribulations of last season should never have happened to a club as enterprising or a team as skilful as Burnley.

Back to Index page	Forward to next article

Hosted by www.Geocities.ws