Tell us about your experience under John Bond

Well Bond had been there as manager when we were schoolboys, and we'd heard about his flamboyancy and all that. So when you came to sign an apprenticeship and you were actually there as a job, every day, he was frightening!

A lot of the players used to come from the North East - good players, you know, Trevor Steven, Brian Laws, Kevin Young - and it all just stopped. A fella came in when they got rid of Gordon Clayton, the chief scout, who was called John Docherty. And when he was finished they found God knows how many letters from people writing in to the club for a trial. When they cleared his desk out, they were all just chucked in the back of his desk. None of them had been looked at or answered. Whether it was finance I don't know, but it was a sin to let it get that way.

It was Gordon Clayton who contacted me himself. I was playing at Wilson's for Accrington Under-14's town team, and it was Gordon Clayton who was stood on the touchline watching. It was him himself. And after about 20 minutes - they always say that a scout knows within 10-20 minutes - he'd gone. And I remember my Dad coming to me and saying, "They had Gordon Clayton there this morning." And I'd played well. Next thing the phone went. So it would have been Gordon Clayton for me as well, as well as Chris Grimshaw. And, like you say, the system was just around the North West, and it then becomes a vicious circle, because the players aren't quite good enough. You know, you do get players who'll come from a region of the North West's size to clubs in the North West if that's the limit of your system, but there's not going to be much coming through. You can't produce a lot of lads coming through just from an area like the North West - it just doesn't happen. The success they had was with Geordies, Scottish lads, Northern Irish lads - when they're coming from a bigger net like that you're going to get two, three, four, five lads coming through. Which was what happened with Trevor Steven, Brian Laws, Kevin Young and people like that. But if you're just concentrating on the North West, you're not going to do it.

That was a bit like my situation, actually. People couldn't believe me - Man City offered me a guaranteed apprenticeship. They put it in writing, they put me in a hotel and looked after me. But as soon as Burnley come in, it didn't matter, didn't matter a thing. Now, other people have said, "If you'd have gone to City - if you get released from Man City - then you go to Burnley," and your Bury's and Rochdale's, you know. Because if you get finished from Burnley you'll have less things to go for.

Yes, I signed a two-year schoolboy's contract - that means they have you then. When you turn 16, you sign a two-year apprenticeship, and at that time they were YTS's which were cheaper as you were on 25 quid a week. I went as a 16 year old, and I can remember my first day, turning up at nine o'clock, and sweeping corridors. And when you could smell cigars it was Mr Bond himself!

They used to have only three or four apprentices, but as soon as the YTS came in, they went, "Let's have ten, fifteen. We're not paying for it. If one comes through out of that fifteen, even better." And I thought that was wrong, instead of having four who were going to be good players. So there were about 15 or 16 of us, and out of them - all right, I was one of the lucky ones, I'll admit, I played nearly 100 games for them - but some of them lads were never going to make it, it was obvious they weren't good enough. I felt that because of this YTS thing - I mean, you weren't an apprentice, you were a YTS - they just got anyone in, you know, "He looks like he can do a little bit - not brilliant, not good, but we'll see how he goes." It was just no good.

Well, with being a local lad - I used to go and watch them - the change was unbelievable. From being a family club and everyone getting on, like Arthur Bellamy - superb, but he just became a different person. You know, people become different people. And then there was George Bray - George was always knocking about, but he wouldn't come. You know, Bond had his own ways - Mr. Boss - you'd to call him 'Boss'. That was one of the first things he said - "I'm the boss round here. Anyone who fails to call me boss....." Anyone not unfastening their boot laces was fined. And it became so....it just wasn't a family. I know the apprentices I was with - Tony Woodworth, Sean Gotto and them - frightened to death! Frightened to death of doing something wrong. And before it was a laugh. We went down training with Arthur Bellamy and we'd stop in the afternoon and he'd help to sweep up and stuff, and it was brilliant, like a big family. That went - it just disappeared.

Well, that's right, I think. When Arthur was there and he had all the lads together, it was like Arthur was the father and we were his pupils. Everyone respected him, and I think to a certain extent he respected all of us. The things we did were good, and we enjoyed doing them - we loved doing them. It changed to the extent that (in miserable voice) "Well, we're doing this, we're doing that." The enjoyment just went out of it. When Arthur was there, we were top of the Lancashire League, and we were buzzing. Everyone wanted to play for him. Arthur then got put aside to doing a bit more of the groundsman work at Gawthorpe, and his coaching seemed to go. He brought a fellow in called John Sainty. We had no respect for him, it just changed. We were frightened of him, he'd never give you encouragement. If you did well, he never said anything. He was effing and blinding - just no respect for him. We were top of the league when he took over - this John Sainty - and I don't think we won another game. That's true - that's fact.

Not very long. And then Tommy Hutchinson and Kevin Reeves then came through and did some work with the kids - which was very good. Hutchinson was top - full of encouragement. But then when John Bond got sacked, John Benson came in, who I thought was very good with the kids. People had respect for John Benson - not John Bond, everyone was frightened of him. Benno brought a different light into it, you started to get again that family atmosphere.

Buchan was a strange cup of tea, to be honest. But he got a lot of respect simply for what he'd done in the game. When he came in that first morning, he was very sound. You got the feeling that the club might be on its way back again. Good man. But six or seven weeks later he was gone.

Yes, I was playing for the reserves. We were looked after by Tommy Hutch - he was still there. And then Tommy Cavanagh came, and it was Tommy who actually gave me my first chance in the first team when I was seventeen. The crowds had gone and gone and gone, and it becomes a vicious circle, because you then can't buy the players the club needs to build the crowds up again. The crowds don't come in, the money doesn't come in and you're back to that financial stalemate where you were wondering how the club was going to pay you through the summer. If Burnley Football Club had said to me, "We can't pay you during the summer," I'd have said, "Fine." That's just me - I'd go there now. I've been watching them this season and I still think I could do a job, me. I couldn't do any worse than what I've seen there! But I always got paid.

We didn't. I remember winning 1-0 at Wolves because we got three days off! We didn't have to report to training till the Thursday, which was great! We had a good run and we were, like you say, fifth in the table. Thing was, everything had got back to a family, you see. Brian Miller was there and he brought back Billy Rodaway and Leighton James, and there were people there who obviously loved the club, and there was no indication of what was to come. We were getting back to the family club and we definitely thought that we were good enough to hold our own. At one time, without any option, he put Jason Harris in, who was only 16, Peter Leebrook, 17, there was Darren Heesom, left-back, 17, myself, 17. When you put that many youngsters in, it didn't do us a lot of good, but through injuries and things like that - one or two bad performances - at one time we had three 16-17 year olds in the team - or 18 I'd have been then. But there was no indication whatsoever that we'd be where we ended up - no chance. But the team who went down instead of us - Lincoln - we played them on the Boxing Day and we got beat 3-2 at Lincoln, and they hardly won another game after that. They went second in the League after beating us. So that goes to prove how it happens.

I respected him, I thought he was doing a good job. I mean, he was doing a job with no money - not a penny. If a player came up for twenty quid I don't think we could have afforded it. That was the reality. And, you see, the fans never....it happens now and they're on you and on you and on you. But at that time, Brian never got any stick because people realised that there was no money in the pot; he'd got what he'd got and we'd either sink or swim. There was the odd barracking - I mean I sometimes couldn't go out of the house in Accrington - but Brian never seemed to get that as much as what I hear now. Fortunately we managed to swim - just! The team spirit was good - there was never anything of groups of players going on their own and whispering about the others. We used to have a laugh. Mondays we'd talk about what we'd done on the Saturday night. We were all together. I think till the last five or six games of the season, it never entered my head that Burnley Football Club would be fighting on the last day of the season to stay in the League. The reaction from the changing room was the same - it didn't dawn on anyone, I don't think, until it got to the stage where we were thinking, "We could do with winning this one, because if results don't go for us..."

Well, the police came into our dressing room, but we didn't know anything about that. We knew that if we lost, they couldn't guarantee ours. Because, if you go back to the Hereford game, we couldn't go out! We weren't allowed outside of the dressing room, so God knows what would have happened.

That's right. Through knowing what the passion is like in the town - I mean some of the players who weren't from round this area didn't believe it, but I was telling them, "You come out with me round Accrington one night." When we'd won, it was brilliant, you'd end up on someone's shoulders. But when we'd lost, it's curtains shut, door locked, don't answer it. And that's what it got to.

That was the worst thing they could have done in the circumstances. That would have happened around 1985-86, and it was the worst thing because you'd have players who had played in the first team who might have had a knock, and then on their comeback game would have been playing in the morning, an 11 o'clock kick-off against Morecambe. They had an A team - and the likes of Leighton James, who was on his way back from injury, could have been playing Alsager College away on a Saturday morning. And that is just no good, and things like that do little to help you get back into form. The Central League was a good league - why they ever went out of it, well, it was expenses wasn't it?

I was signed pro at 17. Tommy Cavanagh came to me and said - this is a classic this. At the time Burnley didn't have a full-time groundsman, and I'd play the game on the Saturday afternoon and at twenty-to-five I was in the changing room to get the team talk - you know, well done boys, enjoy yourselves, see you Monday. Me, I'd get my tracksuit bottoms on and go and start forking the pitch back - put the divots back on the pitch! So one Saturday - this was in November 1985 - he took me and Darren Heesom in together after we'd forked the pitch and he said, "You've both done well I'm going to offer you contracts. I'm going to sign you on 18 month contracts, the rest of this season and the next season."

Looking now, people today want signing-on fees and so on. Well, it just never entered my head. I was just too excited about signing professional. He said, "You're on �200 a week basic, and �50 appearance money in the first team." I was gobsmacked. I was 17 and had been on �32 a week as an apprentice professional with a tenner appearance money - it was in the contract that if you got in the first team as an apprentice you got an extra ten pounds. There were bonuses as well. It wasn't very much at that time and we had to be in the top six before you got any bonus, so we never got any anyway! We might have got some once after we won at Wolves, but that didn't last very long.

But when Tommy said this, I couldn't believe it. I went home to my Mum and said, "They've offered me terms today for my contract." And she said, "What sort of money?" And she couldn't believe it either. I thought, "Seventeen year old - what am I going to do with it?" I opened another account, because I thought I'd never spend it. I mean, I wouldn't even spend my 50 quid appearance money. I even thought of saying, "That's a bit much, are you sure the club can afford it?" Because I wasn't sure, and I them that much and I knew they were struggling, and I knew that they didn't have money and, you know honestly, I felt a bit guilty. I expected them to say, "Well, you'll be on 75 quid a week, and something for playing in the first team." And I was absolutely gobsmacked, and I loved the club that much that I was thinking of saying, "Well I know you're a bit tight for money, so take some because I'm never going to spend it." And that's just exactly how I felt. I was just so chuffed to get signed pro. But I never got a rise!

Well, they'd tried with Brian Miller. Then when Frank Casper came, everyone was confident in that they'd got one of their old boys back, he knew the club, still lived in the town. And I felt then, even though I knew from five minutes after Casper walked through the door as manager - for some reason, you just know - I thought, "My face doesn't fit here and I'm going to be away," and I was gutted, but I felt then it was getting back to the family set up. But the appointment of Brian Miller was obviously when the moves to get back to the old system started. Brian's a great fellow, and he, I felt, had been out of the game just too long to attract the right sort of players to do well. You know, he had to rely on players like Leighton James who, with all the respect in the world for what he's done, had gone by that time, really. But the appointment of him did lift the town. People felt then that the club were trying to get back to what it had been before Bond came in and wrecked it all.

But what I thought they should have done after Brian stepped down was bring Dobbo back as manager, because he was still in the game with Bury, and brought Casper in as his assistant like they had at Bury. Now obviously, Frank is proven as a good coach, but if you'd have got Dobbo in with Casper as his coach, you know, it might have been different. But the appointment of Casper was definitely a further attempt to get it back to what it was.

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