Tell us about your rapid promotion into the first team

Yes, I came over on the 7th January 1959. I had signed pro for Glentoran in the August of the previous year when I was seventeen. I went into the 'A' team - Burnley in those days had five teams - and I went into the third team, and towards the end of the season I got into the reserves. The start of the following season I was reserve - there were no subs in those days - but I was invariably twelfth man. In the seventh game, which was against Preston North End, Bobby Seith rang in with a poisoned foot. Up to then, Tommy Cummings was playing left back, but they reshuffled the defence so that I came in at left back for my debut against Tom Finney at Deepdale - which was....er, I only had two hours to consider it, so it wasn't too bad! We lost the game 1-0 and Tom Finney scored, but I mustn't have done too badly as I was an ever-present for the rest of that season.

I was fortunate as a young boy, coming into a side with so many great players - and I mean great in the proper sense of the word. We were, in those days, a great family club - the young members of the side and of the reserve side babysat for the more experienced players, looked after the kids and so on, and that's the way we were. And that's why we were called the family club. We all went out and had meals together, the wives - well, we all lived in and around the town, so they all knew one another and we all met each other during the week and socialised. They even went shopping together. So all this meant that when you were out on the park, you did your best not to let your team mates down. Obviously, this is a lot different from today, where I don't think any of the players live in the town, they've got to get out to get home, so there's not the same camaraderie, I wouldn't have thought, as there was in those days.

It was nice to be here today just to talk about some of the old times and some of the players that I haven't even met for thirty years - it was just like it was last week. Players like Billy White and Trevor Meredith - Trevor lives about four miles from me, yet I haven't seen him since he left to go to Shrewsbury Town, what, thirty-odd years ago. So it's very strange, and it's a unique feeling, I think, that was born in those days of glory. And it was all galvanised by the manager, because Harry Potts was a great guy, one of the last true gentlemen of football, and it was a sad loss when he passed on. But his attitude towards the players was "I'll treat you as men, and you'll respect it," and we did. He didn't lay down any laws such as "You will not drink after Wednesday night." We didn't as a matter of course, because we knew we didn't want to let him down or our team mates down, so we had a good time at the weekend as everybody did, we let our hair down, and come Monday morning we were in slogging our guts out for the next game.

I was very fortunate. I played for my country in my first full season. I made my debut for Burnley in September 1959 and I made my International debut in the April of 1960 against Wales at Wrexham - a Home International as they were in those days. I had played for the B team, an Irish B international against France in the January of that year and I was reserve twice, but made my debut against Wales against the great Cliff Jones.

Yes, and I got the runaround against Cliff Jones as well! But I kept my place in the side, so perhaps having a hard game to start with was good for me.

I left Burnley in August 1967 to go to Stoke City, but not because I wanted to. I felt that my face didn't fit with the new coach of the side, who was one of my old team mates, Jimmy Adamson. For whatever reason we just didn't seem to hit it off when Jimmy took control, and I felt it was best that I leave, and I went to Stoke City

I was 26.

No, I had six good seasons with Stoke City before injury finally finished my career, so there you go. I sometimes wish I could turn the clock back and say "Well, I'll ride the storm out and stay at Burnley," but you make these decisions and you stick by them. I suppose going down to Stoke made me grow up in terms of looking after myself. With Burnley, because everything was done first class - we travelled first class, we stayed in the top class hotels - we were a little bit mollycoddled, if that's the right word to use. But at Stoke, there were a lot of experienced players there, people like Jimmy Mac, Dennis Violett, Gordon Banks, you know, loads of International players, and you really had to look after yourself in a way. And really, as you get older, you do anyway, but it did make me grow up.

It was a handball incident against me that gave the first goal away, the penalty, and it seemed from then on in that every time Blackburn made an attack they scored. It was just one of those funny games. They hadn't been in the game at all, you know, we were 3-0 up and cruising with about 14 minutes to go. I always maintain it was ball to hand, but you know, the referee makes a decision and you've got to live by it. In the replay we were hopeless, and two Ally McLeod goals beat us 2-0. Things like that happen in football, but you live to fight another day.

Well, the one at Maine Road has got to be one of the most memorable because we won the Championship. As far as I can remember, we had the lowest points total of all time - 55 points....

Oh no, no, but we were a good side over the Championship, we had the talent, we scored a lot of goals - OK we conceded a lot as well - but we entertained the people, and that was probably one of the games that stands out.

Obviously the Cup Final - I know I'm pinpointing games, but there were so many. The Cup Final for the obvious reasons. I still think we were the better side. I still think that we were robbed - when it was 1-1 we had a perfectly good goal disallowed, by Jimmy Robson, and it would have made it 2-1 for us. I've still got the video and I still run it and there's still no way Jimmy was offside.

There was another game when we beat Notts Forest 8-0 and Jimmy scored five. We thrashed West Ham by six - all these great games.....so many games one could highlight. The West Ham side were a tremendous side with all the England players in it - the late, great Bobby Moore, Geoff Hurst and Martin Peters - and we hammered them on here. It was wonderful as we'd beaten the side that - even today's team - are always renowned for playing football. We'd overcome them and we'd done them good and proper.

Bobby Moore - you know, I've played with some great centre-halves, but to me Bobby Moore was the best defender I've ever seen in my life. I remember one night I went to see him play in a Cup replay at Sheffield Wednesday's ground, they were playing Stoke City, and I came home over the tops into Stoke, and I remember saying to my wife, "If they'd had all the kids in the world watching that performance you could have told them, 'If you want to be a defender, just watch Bobby Moore's performance'", it was perfection. He was a wonderful player, for a player who wasn't blessed with a lot of pace, like myself, his timing was fantastic, his distribution was just superb, his positional sense was phenomenal. Just a fantastic player, and it was a great loss also when he went. But it was wonderful to be around in the days when he was at his peak. It wasn't very often that Bobby Moore was lost for words, but he walked off the pitch at Turf Moor with his head bowed that day!

Wonderful days - and we all thought that when we played at home we were already a goal up because of the fans. For a small town - I think in those days the population of the town was around 82,000 - and we invariably got 20, 24, 25 thousand people on. And if it was a local derby it would be thirty-odd thousand. We were just recalling today the replay with Bradford City in the F.A. Cup when there were just over 50,000 on the Turf. And they were sitting on top of the stands and hanging on to the pylons - it was unbelievable.

Yes, they were beating us 2-0 with eight minutes to go, and John Connelly scored - I think the referee was very good to us that day because he must have played about five minutes overtime - and John squeezed another one in well after the injury-time. And I remember, I think there was about 8,000 at the game and around 20,000 locked out - that was why so many wanted to see the replay. And we won 5-0.

Oh yes, a tiny ground. I think we had to walk the last mile to the ground. We had to get off the coach because we couldn't get through for the traffic. But that's how it was in those days. Wolverhampton Wanderers was the same - we always had to park the bus, and the reserves had to pull the skip with the strips in half a mile down to the ground because of the crowds. Wolves used to always get thirty-forty thousand for every home game. Wonderful - happy days.

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