THESE mighty fees have caused mighty arguments. Should they be allowed to continue unchecked? Although Burnley work on the nursery plan - a duty of all the clubs in the general interest of the League and its future - experience has satisfied me that the prevailing transfer fee system should remain. The money paid by one club to another remains in the game; it is not allowed to go out in any shape or form, except by the limited dividend of 5 per cent free of tax which may be paid to the club's shareholders - and that is no golden harvest. Why shouldn't a club that wishes to import a player from another be able to do so within the further limit of time fixed by League regulations, whereby, after mid-March, no club concerned in Championships, promotion, or relegation can play such new men? The exchange helps the selling club to carry on, and the old cry about sales of flesh and blood is played out. Whether we like it or not, football, like other national games, is more commercialised and will remain so.

There are many clubs who seem to have bags of money to spend on transfer fees, such as Everton, Liverpool, Manchester United, Manchester City, Newcastle, Sunderland, Arsenal, Tottenham, Sheffield Wednesday. They have found that their followers want success, and apparently are of the opinion that they have to buy success. That is not the angle I applaud. But I am with them in the endeavour to provide the attractive play their supporters ask. Burnley's supporters know that no high-priced stars can be afforded. They've just got to wait for our youngsters to mature. Transfer fees have gone too high. No one doubts it. This is the result of the star shortage. Supply from the nurseries has not kept pace with demand. Around 1925 Bob Kelly was transferred by Burnley to Sunderland for approximately �6,500, then about a record. What would Kelly (at twenty-five years of age) fetch today!

A record of many times that amount! There is plenty of talk of higher admission fees to matches to meet these developments. If admission to First Division matches was raised to five shillings transfer fees would also increase. In one direction the situation has improved, anyway. In the days of the maximum-wage rule the position was this: not only had a transfer fee to be arranged between club and club, but usually the buyers had to be prepared to find the player a house, and there were other incentives. These included arranging for him to contribute newspaper articles, possibly putting some members of his family on the scouting staff, the player's grandfather or his wife's grandfather being appointed car-park attendant and perhaps being allowed to keep the takings. The transfer-and-wages structure is now free of these perquisites and barbed-wire entanglements. How did it all come about?

The New Deal for the players was a long and wobbly job - I prefer to call their organisation the Players' Union. Prior to the maximum wage being abolished in April 1961, there were rumours that leading performers were giving serious consideration to signing for Italian and Spanish clubs. Eventually, during the summer of that year, several of them did so - Denis Law of Manchester City, Joe Baker of the Hibs, Greaves of Chelsea, and Gerry Hitchens of Aston Villa. One pondered why they went. A few years earlier John Charles had left Leeds United for Italy and the many amenities Juventus F.C. of Turin apparently could give him and the Leeds club could not. One pondered what English and Welsh football had lost - a quarter to half a million spectators in the season? Charles was definitely one of the few who in the 1950's could still draw the crowds, and this was allowed to happen because of our maximum-wage rule. This was the hard fact and one had to face it. When the abolition of the maximum wage arrived it said to the Continental clubs, "Few, if any, players will now be leaving England." Mr. Tommy Trinder, the chairman of Fulham, put that principle into effect when he was able to offer Haynes, in the summer of 1961, a contract suitable to Johnny and better apparently than the Continent could supply.

We had a problem of this kind with Jimmy McIlroy, the Irish international inside-forward, in 1958. Deep down most of us felt that McIlroy, and indeed other Burnley players, were not being paid according to their ability or anything like their value to the club. In fact, at one period it looked quite possible that we wouldn't be able to keep him. Reports circulated that I had given him one of my butcher's shops and, also, that he was taking a job behind the counter. So there were telephone calls from Press photographers: could they take pictures of McIlroy all dressed up for the job and serving customers with meat? Sounds all right, but it isn't such 'easy meat'! Nothing of the kind had happened, of course. The situation was solved, for the time being, when he became an author and writer of football articles.

However, one felt determined that something had to be done about players' pay by the League as a whole. This something could not be achieved overnight: but the wage structure must be altered for the better. At that time one could not view abolition of the maximum wage with any confidence: could the game afford it? It was November 1960 before I became a convert. During this year a series of conferences between club chairmen and League Management Committee took place. It was obvious to everyone that the players were now very restless: they had as their leader Jimmy Hill - a character this young man. His beard is striking and so was his leadership. He knew what he wanted and how to go about things. He was a formidable opponent and in the end probably achieved more for the players than he ever dreamed of, though some of us did not think much of the way the League leaders went about it.

Ultimately we came to the time when the chairmen had to meet, in early November 1960, at the League's new headquarters at Lytham St. Annes. In one direction at least we were making headway - from dingy, old-fashioned offices in Preston to these luxury surroundings. The alterations there, I believe, cost just under �50,000, which made everyone feel there was still plenty of money in football, though I don't remember the shareholders of the Football League ever being asked if this money could be spent. But there we were. Main item before the meeting: Players' Wages. On behalf of Burnley it fell to me to propose, and Mr. Reginald Pratt, of West Ham United, seconded, a graduation in pay, such as �30 a week for players for matches in the First Division, �25 for the Second Division, �20 for the Third Division, and �16 for the Fourth Division. What a flop! Two votes it received: those of proposer and seconder! All the rest said no. Other propositions came forward, such as appearance money, higher winning bonuses, attendance bonuses, and so forth. Then Major Wilson Keys, the chairman of West Bromwich Albion, spoke on the lines that attendances were falling, costs were rising, and clubs could not afford higher wages. In other words, not another penny for the players.

That meeting ended on a very sad note; the clubs had made no headway at all. One had a deep suspicion that this was the answer the Players' Union was looking for. When they heard of the no-change decision they must have said to themselves, "Now for action; close ranks; attack on a wide front and victory's ours." The thought uppermost in my mind was that this was a day for which the clubs would soon be very sorry. A settlement of the everlasting players' wages debate could have been reached that day. The wrong attitude taken at the housewarming at Lytham St. Annes has now come home to quite a few clubs.

Pay top price for what you want, provided, of course, the quality's there and you are satisfied you are getting value for money. That's what life has taught me. Burnley directors, like those of other clubs, wondered for a time where this extra money was to come from, but that surely is an example of not knowing where you're going. A member of the board had told me that a senior director was not going to be a party to paying thirty pounds a week to any player, and the sooner I forgot about it the better.

One of the snags to progress - and this is a national, not a local, comment - is that some directors of clubs are possibly paying their players higher wages than they are able to earn themselves. Therefore, it does not go down too well. But that's a narrow-minded attitude. The game won't get far along those lines.

Well, after Lytham St. Annes the Players' Union decided to take a chance: they went the whole hog - maximum wage must be abolished, the retain system must go. These were the main props on which the administration of League football had rested. So, in order to see how far the maximum-wage principle was right, I decided to get the other fellow's point of view. I consulted our players. I know this would have caused an explosion in quite a few League camps, but I had not one but a series of meetings with members of Burnley's team, and also talks with other Players' Union men. The game was bang at the cross-roads, and these discussions brought new angles, and that's how I learned to take the right turning - I plumped for abolition of the maximum wage and in December 1960 did so publicly.

Was that Bob Lord, 'Lord Bob', or the barrow boy? Whoever it was, the decision was right. For these reasons:

1. No other profession in all the world has a maximum wage principle.

2. Parents of the youths who were or would be coming into the game would allow them to take up football as a livelihood with much more confidence and satisfaction, inasmuch as, if they made the grade, they would be paid accordingly.

3. It has been stated, publicly as well as privately, that there have been under-the-counter payments to players from time to time. This, to me, is vile. All this would be cut out if there was no maximum-wage regulation.

4. The change will bring into the Football League a better type of man, and will also make better players, though not overnight. (Remember those crazy, over-coloured headlines about stars galore today and tomorrow? This was altogether too soon and too sudden.)

5. Although we've got away from the street-corner and cloth-cap type of footballer, it will go a long way towards making football an honourable and more respected profession.

6. It will give the players something to work for - a chance and incentive to save money. Quite a lot of youngsters are now doing so.

7. The professional footballer will definitely be able to take his proper station in society.

8. It will eventually put all the clubs in all the four divisions of the League in their proper places.

9. One has heard a lot about different wages to different players ruining team spirit. There's no sign of it that I've seen, and the old excuse - years-old excuse - doesn't hold water. Time will tell. In Scotland there has been no maximum wage and League football there is still going strong.

But this welcome change arrived only after an ugly situation. A strike in football was on the horizon. The situation was tense all round. For our part, we held a conference with the players at Turf Moor. Strike action has never been up my street, but we had to view things from an all-round angle, to gather fully their side of the case. We had no unruly, recalcitrant, dissatisfied players at Burnley, but the majority of them were prepared to stand behind their union, and one couldn't blame them. We explained what might happen if a strike took place - that, for a time, football would be in a chaotic condition and, possibly, after peace was restored, everybody in the game would suffer because support would have dwindled away. Broken habits are not easily restored. That is why the cinemas in the early days ran serials - Pearl White and so on - to keep the habit going and the people coming. We promised there would be no victimisation.

Contrary to what the Football League had intimated to the world - that secondary-type matches would be played on Football League grounds - we told our players we would not tolerate black-legs. If there was to be a strike let it be clean, and if there is such a thing as a sporting strike let it be sporty. I firmly believed that if there was a strike the players eventually would win. But, win or lose, the damage to the game would be irreparable.

The news arrived by wireless. We were playing Hamburg in the European Cup-tie at Turf Moor that night in January. I, for one, ran to the dressing-room to tell our chaps that the meeting between the Management Committee and the Players' Union had agreed there should be no strike. The tension of a European Cup-tie is much above that of any English League or Cup game, but I was as happy as if we had already beaten Hamburg ten-nil. Removal of the clouds also helped the players. The League representatives, Messrs. Richards, Mears, and Hardaker, met the Players' Union that important day on a very bleak hill. My contention, as will be seen later, is that the Football League is now too big and too commercial to be run by amateur legislators. The time has come to appoint a highly paid boss to the job.

There followed, of course, another meeting between the League Management Committee and the chairmen of the clubs. Chief business: proposed abolition of the maximum wage. The president, Mr. Richards, got a ruling from 88 per cent of those present to agree to abolition but to refuse the players freedom of contract - freedom to move where they choose at the end of their contract, without let or hindrance. Charlton Athletic withdrew their objection to free wages, the president received the clubs' mandate, and all thought peace was here, even if some thought it peace at a price. The chairman of Manchester City, Mr. Alan Douglas, proposed this change, but at the subsequent extraordinary general meeting in early April chairmen from various clubs now said they could not agree: on returning home to board meetings their co-directors had overruled them! I could hardly believe my ears.

Now let us examine this Double Event affair, in which, like Huddersfield Town in 1928, we fell between two stools. At the commencement of season 1961-62 everyone in authority at Turf Moor knew the plan of campaign. We had turned down the opportunity of reappearing in the Football League Cup. All our boys - manager, captain, and staff - had set their sights on emulating Tottenham Hotspur's record of 1960-61, that is, the Double. The term haunted me morning, afternoon, and night, and will now do so for all time. As the latter part of March and April arrived it was the Double, the Double, the Double.

It is true to say that practically everything went according to plan up to Sunday, March 18. During that night - for the first time - I was to experience stomach pains. Within ten hours they landed me in Victoria Hospital, Burnley, for an emergency operation for appendicitis. Before undergoing this operation my mind was in a state of turmoil. I had a business which, to be modest, is rather substantial. I had the added responsibility of being Chairman of the Burnley club, a situation which, even in quiet periods, takes up quite a good deal of my working and leisure time. I had no idea as to what was awaiting me. Only the surgeon knows what condition my inner workings were in. All I knew was that I had the comforting presence of my younger daughter, who is a Sister at the hospital.

One just hopes and prays for the best in a nightmare of this kind. No one can have been more thankful to the powers-that-be when I came back to earth and recognised that I was still in hospital. My first thought was for those near and dear to me, my second for all those persons of whom I am so proud at Turf Moor. I realised that I was alive and, all being well, might soon be able to pick up the threads and carry on from where I had left off. It will not be out of place to thank all those friends, relations, and some enemies who sincerely sent me, in some form or other, wishes for complete recovery. Now, I understand, it is complete.

But here I was in hospital with the club only a few days away from the Cup semi-final to be played against Fulham at the Aston Villa ground on March 31 - I remember asking the surgeon, Mr. Stamford Howard, only two days after the operation: would I be able to see Burnley play at Villa Park? To my complete surprise he said he saw no reason why the journey could not be made. This was the tonic that gave me the necessary courage and strength to fight towards recovery. The following day I was visited in hospital by my old friend the Burnley captain, Jimmy Adamson, whose first words were: "How are you? Shall we be seeing you at Villa Park?" I said I'd do my damnedest to be there. And I made it!

I left hospital just 168 hours after admittance, and in the next five days did my utmost to recover some strength in order to see the boys play in the semi-final. That is how a club chairman feels. But I did not make up my mind to travel to the Villa ground until early on the Saturday morning of the game. By car to Manchester and plane to Birmingham I managed to get there. What next? How about the nervous strain, trying - even exhausting - at the best of times to any club official? That semi-final tie proved absolutely exhilarating both to body and brain.

We were a bit fortunate to draw, but after the game I realised that the plans were still there to carry out. The Double was still possible, although we were going to have a terrific task to emulate the great Tottenham side of the previous season. In the last twenty-seven days up to May 1, Burnley had to play eleven tense, testing matches. In the early days of April this really caused one concern and no little apprehension. Could we do it? The task seemed colossal. At my age all this strain was severe, as I knew that if we reached the Cup Final the thousand and one jobs involved days and nights of constant labour.

Then the troubles of an over-taxed team began to arrive in injuries to players. Ten days after the semi-final came the replay at Leicester. Tommy Cummings was unable to play. During the game Brian Miller, who took his place at centre-half, broke a toe, but carried on to the finish. This was the beginning of a spate of injuries which I had always feared. For those mishaps to arrive at this time was certainly unlucky. In one important League game we lacked all three regular members of the half-back line, and so it went on.

Very soon we were in the position of being through the semi-final and apparently could put the Cup Final on one side and concentrate on the League Championship. I say apparently because it is not so easy. To those outside Turf Moor it may have appeared to be just a formality. Tottenham were slipping; Ipswich were coming up on the rails, confidently and successfully. We had eight League matches to play, four at home and four away, and if we could get full points from the home games we were high and dry. But the strain was there in the middle. The glamour of Wembley was there. The players were 'pressing', as the golfers say. At Turf Moor we should have beaten Blackburn Rovers easily. But no! Manchester United, a few days later at Turf Moor, won by 3-1. The 'pressing' feeling was sapping our talents, undermining confidence. We played Blackpool at Turf Moor, won by 2-0, and finally came Chelsea (already doomed to relegation) and away slipped another home point.

In away games we could not do much better, so that finally, after the Chelsea match, the precious prize of the League Championship went to gallant Ipswich Town. What a sorrowful moment every one of us experienced when that news came through! But I make my bow to Ipswich. They did the job courageously and well. Remember that no English club has the opportunity to enter the European Cup without going through a grinding, yes, terrific, battle of forty-two League matches and coming out on top. Ipswich may have had the run of the ball - you need it to win any prize in modern football - but they have not bought their way into the honours list. That is something we can all be thankful for.

The team which enters the European Cup representing England has done so after a season of competitive football which no other entrant has to encounter. The teams of other countries qualify by probably no more than thirty and, in some cases, fewer matches, and these are played under better conditions - there is far less mud and wear and tear. It is my sincere hope, no matter what Manchester United, Wolverhampton Wanderers, Burnley, or Tottenham have done in the European Cup, that very soon our much-tried representatives will go one better - the club to bring that glamorous trophy to this country will give English football the biggest boost it has ever had.

Well, such was the end of Burnley's Championship dream. Some say the honour was thrown away. That is rubbish. Too many matches had to be played in too short a period. Eleven vital games in twenty-seven days, an average of one game every two and a half days. Each game filled with tension on brain, muscle, and tendon . . . that is the explanation. I know exactly the ordeal our players and staff experienced, and my heart bled for them. 'Threw it away?' No!

So we came in sight of the twin towers of Wembley, a landmark which has always been in my mind and in the mind, I am sure, of every English soccer player in every grade of the game. It is a sure fact that any team which win the right to go to Wembley build up within themselves one thought: "We're there!" They eat it, breathe it, sleep it.

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