It is true that after this upset with Rheims we all attended a banquet in Paris, English newspapermen included. There I am supposed to have made one of the diplomatic speeches of my life. But banquets are banquets. After-dinner speeches are after-dinner speeches. Football's like the rest of life in those affairs. I could not by any stretch of imagination say I was sincere in the words I used. There is a tremendous amount of bull in the world and here 'John Bull' had to conform, much to my dislike. This was one of the occasions when the chairman had to keep his tongue in his cheek. Abroad, the compliments flow fast and furious. Everyone, or nearly everyone, at these football dinners gets a gift of some kind and rounds of applause. Any club from England will tell you that there are presents for players - OK - but sometimes those for referee and linesmen . . . well, let it go at that.

Two days after this tangle came one of the most memorable matches in which Burnley were ever engaged. It was in London at popular White Hart Lane. Tottenham were then well in front at the top of the First Division, having played over twenty matches and dropped very few points. They were being overlauded as the team of the century, but let us give them a genuine big hand. They were certainly playing football of the highest order. Practically every home game was a sell-out, and they were attracting tremendous crowds to their away games. Our match with them was a highlight. Before half-time Tottenham were winning by 4-1 and when their fourth goal was scored David Mackay, the left half-back, indulged in an action I construed as childish. He stood still and, by a mimic bow, a sort of bow to Allah, intimated to all those 50,000 people that Burnley apparently were just easy meat. If that was so, Mr. Mackay sure got a shock. In the second half Burnley were to show, not for the last time, that to be four goals behind is no time for throwing in the towel. They fought back and, by scientific football of the Spurs' own pattern, squared the match at four-all. We thought we were a bit unlucky not to take the lead. I do not know how David Mackay bowed out at the final whistle but everyone from our part of the world had reason to be proud, especially after all the lurid headlines that surrounded our return from Paris.

Burnley had shown London skill like that of Tottenham's and a good portion of Lancashire guts.

Let's couple with that toast a tribute to the footballing ability of the North-East, whence come quite a few of our players. This game had everything, and we finished the week feeling highly satisfied with our efforts in, first of all, representing English football on the Continent in the European Cup and then, so soon after, pitting our ability against what was then probably the finest side in football. After all, this Tottenham side is reputed to have cost something like millionaire figures. Over a quarter of a million, anyhow. In contrast, Burnley had not cost �10,000 (all figures approximate in accord with League regulations). What it had cost was a lot of hard work, care, and attention to detail. Surely, that's how it should be: money may talk but hard work shouts.

The crowd at Tottenham seemed to realise it. Anyway, at the finish our team received one of the nicest and most sincere ovations of their experience. We sat in the stand thinking, "What a difference from Paris, from the country Britain helped in the war!" Some of us were very much tempted to bow to Allah. I touch my hat to Tottenham.

On we go again to the European Cup. In December's opening week we were drawn to play Hamburg at Turf Moor in the first leg. The subsequent negotiations to arrive at definite dates for this match and for the second leg in Hamburg were protracted. We wanted to play in mid-January. Never let us forget that these Continental clubs have all the English club fixtures cutely calculated. Hamburg suggested dates both very near to the dates of our F.A. Cup rounds. It makes you think....an incredible situation arose. We were determined that we were going to play our first leg on Wednesday, January 18th. This being an all-ticket match, we went ahead with the printing. Supporters will be surprised to learn that the fixture was not finally confirmed until Wednesday, January 11th. During the course of these negotiations with the European Cup Committee we were regularly reminded by these Continental representatives of all kinds of obligations and reasons why Hamburg could not play this match in January. So we appealed to the Football Association in London, the parent body in this country, but, strange to say, not much support came from that quarter.

Now the return match in Hamburg: this should surely have been played in February. But, no, the German club came forward with the excuse that if we would defer it until mid-March they would by this time have a floodlighting system installed on their ground; then it could be played in the evening, so ensuring a sell-out. This seemed another example of Continental subterfuge, as, when we did play the second leg in Hamburg on March 15, the only signs of floodlighting being installed were one or two holes dug in readiness for the pylons. In any case, it was played to a full house in the afternoon. Let's be frank: Continentals do not like playing under winter-like conditions. Nor do we, for that matter, but it is all in the game and you take things as they come. When those conditions prevail they usually put up the shutters and wait for better weather. The Champions of the English First Division are expected here to give of their best under all kinds of climatic conditions; the Continentals desire firm grounds all the time. So much for the preliminaries.

Before meeting Hamburg we travelled, in mid-January, to Cardiff to meet the City in the League. On the train we met a German newspaper reporter along with three or four members of the Hamburg club. They were spying out the opposition. Nothing wrong with this, of course. It is a wise way of doing things. The evening before the match, however, two of us were invited to join a party of German journalists, including our friend on the train. I asked, "Do you speak English?" Only our travelling companion said yes, but we were later to find after they had beaten us in Hamburg - that every one of the party spoke excellent English. 'Kidding', if you choose to call it that, is rampant in the foreign international football sphere.

When the Hamburg team arrived in Burnley, a day or so later, they visited the Turf Moor ground. After we had explained to them that we would give them facilities to train at our Gawthorpe playing fields, they said they would rather train on Turf Moor, a situation which was intolerable. Even our own players do not train on the pitch, let alone have ball practice there. Why should we go to the expense of creating these playing pitches and training grounds at Gawthorpe if we are not going to use them, and why should we fall for the intrigue of these Continental clubs by allowing the facility of getting the feel of the turf before a match? What a mixed-up situation would accrue if every Football League club insisted that their team should train on the match-pitch on the day before the match! Our refusal created some consternation among the German party, but we determined to carry out the wishes of our manager that no one used Turf Moor before the game. This caused more complaints in the Press, a few in England, and certainly many in Germany. As on many other occasions, we just took it. To be hospitable to visiting clubs does not mean selling all your rights down the river. The match was played and Burnley won 3-1 after a wonderful show by both sides. Near the end we were three-up but the German outside-left reduced the lead in the last few minutes. Was a lead of two goals enough? We would have been happier with three or four.

Came the memorable early weeks of March. Note the position: we had to play Chelsea at Turf Moor in the League on Saturday, March 11; Hamburg in Germany on Wednesday, March 15; and the semi-final of the F.A. Challenge Cup against Tottenham Hotspur at Villa Park on the following Saturday, March 18. This was an injustice, in the truest sense, to Burnley F.C. by the Football Association. In my estimation the club representing the English League in the European Cup should be given some consideration regarding congested fixtures.

Let us re-cap. Burnley's programme in March was like this: on Saturday, the 4th, we played an F.A. Cup quarter-final against Sheffield Wednesday at Hillsborough, drawing nil-nil. On the following Tuesday (March 7) we replayed at Turf Moor, winning 2-0, two exceedingly hard, honest-to-goodness games. On Saturday, the 11th, we had to play Chelsea at home in the League - that is the day when we fielded what the football world and the Press termed a reserve side in a First Division match. In this Chelsea match how did Burnley fare? With an allegedly weak side - with which description I emphatically disagree - we were winning by 4-3 until the last minute when Jimmy Greaves equalised. Chelsea were lucky to get a point. Some weaklings! Our lads - we call them all 'lads' in Lancashire - had given the football world some idea of their ability. I imagine Chelsea chuckled at the thought of playing against what was largely our Central League side but, nevertheless, the strongest side we could put out that day. It certainly made history both for the club and the way the affair was dealt with by the authorities. But I will be dealing with that later, as the chronological story unfolds.

The following Wednesday we had to play Hamburg in the third-round European Cup second leg in Germany; then travel all the way back to England for Saturday's semi-final against Tottenham at Villa Park. A matter of five important, full-of-tension matches in fourteen days plus travel-strain. And they wonder why English football lags against the Continentals. Is it any wonder, without wishing to make excuses, that we failed at two of the most important obstacles?

When Tottenham Hotspur held their celebration banquet at the Savoy in London, late in May, I replied to the toast of the guests. Many members of the Football League Management Committee were present, and many members and executives of the F.A. I implored them, now that the Spurs, as Champions, would be representing the best country in the world in the European Cup, to consider giving the White Hart Lane club some elasticity in their Football League and possibly F.A. Cup programmes in the following season, this in order to allow them to approach their European Cup engagements unfettered. "They should be free to concentrate on them for many days . . . . Allow the Spurs facilities which most of the competing Continentals receive from their governing bodies," was roughly what I said. Events in 1962 showed that the appeal did not fall on stony ground. Burnley have no wish that any other English club should be treated in the unfortunate manner in which we were treated. Well, that's the way we were fated to fall between three stools - three or four stools, actually. The League seemed to forget that our complications were increased by our loyalty in entering for their new League Cup when others backed out.

At Hamburg I was apprehensive of the fact that we had only a two goals' lead. However, Hamburg were the better team and out we went by 4-1, making the aggregate 5-4. The ball could have run more kindly for us, the disappointment was intense, but, as they say in our part of the world, we soon realised that we had not to look backwards into the future.

So back to meet a famous and gallant foe called Tottenham Hotspur in the Cup semi-final. Our players apparently approached life in the same way. Not by any stretch of imagination can it be said that Villa Park is our home-from-home. Aston Villa wear claret and light blue. So do Burnley. There is not much difference, if colours count, except that our stockings have hoops. It seems to make a mighty difference. We have generally gone through the hoop. It has not been one of our happy hunting grounds.

True, this F.A. Cup semi-final seemed to be Burnley's all the way in the opening half. True to our luck, however, at this worrying time trusty Jimmy Adamson was given the slip by Bobby Smith, the great leader of the Spurs front line, and so came the opening goal. This after we had run Tottenham almost into the ground for half an hour. Shortly after the interval Jimmy Robson headed what was apparently a perfect goal, and Referee Ken Collinge, from Altrincham, seemed to me to allow it by pointing to the centre, but then awarded a free kick instead in Tottenham's goalmouth. What a blow! The decision took some stomaching, but the Burnley players adhered to tradition: good behaviour on and off the field. No clamouring round the referee. No childish hullabaloo. Immediately afterwards Bobby Smith added a second goal with a flying shot, and that was really the end of the claret-and-blue from Lancashire in the Cup competition of memorable and sometimes miserable 1960-61. Some said Smith 'chanced his luck, and it came off'. But that's football. One of the most spectacular of modern Cup Final goals was a case of 'chancing his arm': when Jackie Milburn, after Ernie Taylor's back-heel pass, scored a scorching goal against Blackpool from twenty yards or more in 1951. Nothing ventured, nothing won - that is one of the reasons for any hits I've happened to make in life.

Now the Spurs could see daylight regarding the Double Event, unaccomplished by any club since the distant, far less-difficult days of 1889 and 1897. In the final, whilst perhaps not showing the grade of football expected of them, they pulled it off. Deservedly, I say. Leicester City certainly appeared to be really on top in parts of the game and then ran up against the injury bogey that seems to haunt the Wembley Stadium on Final Day. But allowance should be made for the fact that, with the League theirs, the Spurs were performing under exceptional tension, with more strain probably than their opponents. Tottenham's displays, never mind their successes, have given a fillip to English football at a time when it was sorely needed. Sometimes the Provinces quibble at London's strength in football. The truth is, of course, that the game today needs Tottenham and Arsenal, Aston Villa and Newcastle, Everton and the Wolves, and all the other great names in full bloom. If more clubs can get near the Spurs standard there will be no more 'missing millions'. It is the greatest game ever invented and this country must and will eventually be its rulers, as before, on the field of play. All of which brings us to the week ending March 18, 1961. Remember that Burnley had entered every competition open to a League club, including the European Cup. Now we were out of both the leading Cup tournaments and had only an outside chance in the League. Well, we lost the lot.

We had tried for the lot; we did not win honours, but we had all gained experience; exceptional experience, as you will hear. We had certainly won renown. We were not dismayed. We could still hold our heads high. During the season we played sixty-two first-class matches; if this isn't a record in English football, it's a devil of a lot. These included the new Football League Cup ties. Being the Champions of the First Division, we thought it right and proper to lend our support to this competition. Now, after a sample, one can say there's nothing in it and, I venture to suggest, never will be. The whole competition is untidy; it has too many weak features about it. We did eventually reach the semi-final of the tournament, quarter-final of the European Cup, the semi-final of the F.A. Cup, the semi-final of the Football League Cup, fourth position in the First Division, and won the old Lancashire F.A. Cup for the second year running. The reserve side finished fourth in the Central League, and our 'A' and 'B' teams and juniors took honours in their sections. All this for the expense of short of �10,000 spent on players (figures approximate as required, etc., etc.). No other club in the history of football ever achieved what Burnley did in 1960-61 for actually no expenditure at all. And the future looked equally promising. So what was there to moan about? Plenty. Disciplinary decisions.

First of all, Harry Potts received a harsh sentence from the F.A. for his alleged misdemeanour in New York. He was supposed to have spoken to the Press on certain aspects of the game and the refereeing in Burnley's match with Kilmarnock there. I was also reported by the referee, who alleged that I had made certain remarks, but the Football Association Disciplinary Committee dismissed the case. For once in a while, it appears that the barrow boy wasn't wrong in the eyes of authority, heaven bless them! The next grievance concerned the very strict way in which Harry Potts was dealt with by the F.A. Disciplinary Committee for the incident during the Rheims match in Paris. All I wish to add is that I cannot conceive of any body of men being able to judge fairly when they did not see the affair and know the tension of the situation. The fine placed on the Burnley manager therefore struck me as being exceptionally harsh and one feature of the decision as being quite unjustified - that is, he was instructed not to sit near the touchline during the remainder of season 1960-61. Did the members of the F.A. who so ruled realise that they were, in effect, silencing Harry Potts completely during match-play, and withdrawing from him the necessary contact managers are entitled to have with their teams during play? One is fully aware that managers are not allowed, and rightly, to sing out instructions to players during a match. To the initiated, however, there are many other methods which can quite properly be used to help teams from the touchline seat.

Then there was the League's reaction to the Chelsea match affair. Let's set out the position in true perspective. On the Thursday before the game it became known at Turf Moor that six or seven of our players would be unfit to appear. Our present manager has always had autonomy in choosing all our teams, without the slightest interference from anyone. He informed me that evening of the side which he intended to play; namely, nine members of the Central League team (which we believe at Burnley is quite as good as or better than many First Division sides) plus Tommy Cummings and Gordon Harris, first-team regulars. That, in the manager's professional estimation, was the strongest eleven he could field against Chelsea, and I submit that no one has any right to challenge his choice. Who is to say, better than a club manager with sole control, which men shall constitute the first team on any occasion? The League Management Committee? I don't think so.

Of course, the rule states that if any club is alleged to have played a weakened side, and is so reported by other clubs, the Management Committee shall call for an explanation. And if they do not agree that this explanation is satisfactory the club shall be dealt with as the Management Committee thinks fit. What an autocratic situation! I am well aware that some members of the Management Committee do not love and cherish the chairman of Burnley, but I think they were swayed in their judgement by sections of the Press. Anyway, they overruled our explanation and fined the club �1000.

In January 1962 the Stoke City manager announced that they were resting Stanley Matthews and Thompson for their away match with Bristol Rovers in the League on the Saturday before their fourth-round F.A. Cup-tie with Blackburn Rovers, and there were complaints from Bristol that the absence of Matthews would spoil the gate. The situation was interesting. What would happen? What happened was that the League made it known in March that, in view of the doctor's certificate submitted by the Stoke club stating that Matthews was suffering from muscle fatigue and should not play, and that Thompson was unfit to play, the explanation was deemed satisfactory by the League and no further action was taken.

We all know that Stanley Matthews can't be expected to play week by week throughout the season at his age. Fair enough. But what about our muscle fatigue at Burnley in the League, the European Cup, the League Cup, and now meeting Sheffield Wednesday in the F.A. Cup twice in four days; then this Chelsea League match prior to a week containing such tremendously important games as the European Cup-tie in Germany - in Germany, don't forget - and the F.A. Cup semi final with the Spurs! This is muscle, bone, brain, and entire body fatigue! Without wishing to be disrespectful to the members of the medical profession, I suggest that it is the easiest thing in the world for a football club to encounter muscle fatigue.

In the case of Burnley, who during the last few years have employed the policy of youth, there are no ready-made, high-priced players; no costly men who might pass as good and proper substitutes for injured regulars. They are all from the nursery - as it should be. So who, other than the manager, shall say who is a first-teamer and who shall play? Always remember that all players have certain characteristics. All players have certain features about them; every one of these points has to be taken into consideration when choosing a team calculated to blend. Only one man could say whether it was better to play one, two, three, or ten Central League players: it was the blend and strength of the combination that counted. And the match and its result proved all this. Clubs complained and the Management Committee punished. Instead, the authorities should be pleased and proud that we are helping to transform footballers in their youthful state into internationals, as against contributing to all the complications surrounding these �55,000, �65,000, �75,000 transfer fees. If we had included nine such costly players from the Central League would we have been reported, would we have heard anything more about it, would we have been fined?

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