"Football Is My Business" Sporting Handbooks, 1946
A few years back, a young lad of about seventeen sat in the offices of the Burnley Football Club, busily sorting the morning post, and wishing there weren't so many letters to open. He wanted to get out on to the football field and kick a ball about. The phone shrilled, and the lad answered, saying, "Burnley Football Club here." A deep resonant voice boomed out in his ear, "This is George Allison, manager of Arsenal. Can I speak to the secretary, please?"
Here's how the dialogue proceeded:
Youngster: "Mr.Alf Boland is not here yet. This is the assistant-secretary speaking. Can I do anything for you?"
Allison: "I want to make an offer for the transfer of Lawton, your centre-forward. Will you tell Mr.Boland I shall be phoning again?"
Youngster: "Very good, Mr.Allison, I'll tell him."
With that, Tommy Lawton, assistant-secretary and 17 yr-old centre-forward of Burnley, replaced the receiver. Yes, it was me all right. And I answered four more calls that morning, from Wolves, Everton, Newcastle and Manchester City.
It wasn't a joke. I was assistant-secretary of the club, and had been working in the offices since the age of fifteen, when I joined Burnley as an amateur, with the understanding that I would sign professional forms on my seventeeth birthday.
As a schoolboy, Lawton's prodigious talent had attracted serious interest from Bolton Wanderers, Liverpool, Bury and Sheffield Wednesday. However, the grandfather of the 15-yr old Lawton insisted that any club signing his young grandson must provide employment until he turned professional, which was legally restricted to players aged 17 or over. This caused problems, until they came into contact with Burnley:
Ten days later, I signed for Burnley...and, as usual with my affairs in those days, Mr.Horrocks and grandad had a hand in the matter. Apparently, my old master had spoken about me to a Burnley director, Wilf Hopkinson, and it was agreed I would work in the club offices. In addition, in order that I should be well looked after, grandad was to be given a job on the ground staff. It was my big chance, and I was determined to take it. Three months later the club found us a house, and mother, grandad and I moved to Burnley, and my destiny began to take shape.
I was a little over fifteen and a half when I arrived at Turf Moor, Burnley, in May 1935. I settled down straight away, and to a youngster who lived, breathed, slept and ate football, the whole atmosphere of being attached to a professional club, even in the summer months, was pretty exciting. From the first, my guide and mentor at Burnley was Ray Bennion, the former Manchester United and Wales half-back. Ray must have been very interested in me, because he devoted quite a lot of time in attempting to improve my football knowledge.
Every day that first summer he had me out on the ground working like a galley slave. Ray went in goal and out would come his stock phrase, "Hit the ball as hard as you like, both feet. Hit it into the corners, not at me. I'll bend down and pick 'em out." To vary this, he would draw a chalk spot on the wall of the stand, drag out a chair from the office, sit straddle-legged and exhort me, "Keep shooting at that spot, and hit it nine times out of ten. You'll keep doing it until it gets dark...or until you drop." He was a hard taskmaster, but I'm glad now that he was. Another pleasant little plan he thought up for me was to dribble the ball round the field, on the outside of the touchline. Every time I got to one of those enamel advertising signs, I was to swing round and hit the "B's" in "Burnley's Beer is Best." Strangely enough, it never gave me a thirst! Well, that was the thoroughness of Ray Bennion. I listened and learned; I practised assiduously, and frequently took the ball out on my own for that extra little bit of practice I never seemed to get tired of.
After a number of games with the 'A' side, came the great day when my name went up on the noticeboard as centre-forward for the Central League side against Manchester City at Maine Road. I didn't do very well at the start, remember I was barely sixteen, so back to the 'A' team. An interval, during which I practised even harder and again I was chosen for the Reserves. This time I did better, started scoring a few goals, and kept my place.
Towards the end of the season, with the senior team fighting to avoid relegation from the Second Division, Ray Bennion said to Tom Clegg, the Burnley chairman, "Why not give this boy a chance in the League side? You've nothing to lose." Greatly to my surprise - but not Bennion's - I was selected for the first-team, against Doncaster Rovers at Turf Moor on March 28th, 1936. I don't need to refer to a text book for that date.
I was the youngest centre-forward ever to play in League football, being 16 and a half. Opposing me was Bycroft, that day playing his first game for Doncaster. I played fairly well, I think, but without scoring. But we got a point. Next week I was still in the side for the match at Swansea, my first visit to Wales and my longest ever train journey to date. Shades of that 53-hour journey from Romania to Holland three years later!
Halfway through the first-half, I was the happiest man in or out of football boots. Hornby, the Burnley left-winger, crossed a ball and I headed it into the net. Alick Robinson, our captain and left-half, raced across the field to hug me, while I dealt likewise with Hornby. And I got another in the second-half, and a very happy bunch of Burnley footballers came back to Lancashire with a 2-0 victory, and two precious points.
Not even the dour, nameless player who told me, "Don't think too much of thyself. Tha've a long way to go, and a lot to learn," could spoil my happy hour. I carried on to the end of the season as the regular centre-forward, and in seven games scored five goals. And Burnley stayed up in the Second Division, not that I take the credit for that!
In August 1936 I reported for training with Burnley - although I had been out on the ground nearly every day that summer - and started the season as the regular centre-forward. Things seemed to go right for me from the first moment I ran out on to the field in the opening game.
The lessons I had learned in my Second Division games at the tail end of the previous season, plus the extra training I had put in during the summer, were all part of the ever-growing confidence, without which it would have been impossible to have played in the tough testing ground of senior football. I scored goals at regular intervals and was getting a lot of help from the lads behind and around me in the Burnley team.
On October 6th, I reached a milestone in my comparatively short career - I was seventeen. Three days later, I signed professional forms for Burnley. As if to celebrate, on the following day I gathered my first hat-trick in Second Division football, against Spurs at Turf Moor. It was a great afternoon and one of the highlight memories of my life. Within thirty seconds of turning professional, so to speak, I had scored. We had barely kicked off when I received the ball, and streaking down the middle, crashed a shot past the Spurs keeper. We won 3-1, and I got all our goals. I remember that Arthur Rowe, who I was to meet often during war-time football when he became the team attendant to the Army soccer team, was the Spurs centre-half that afternoon.
Christmas came and went, and from personal observation and odd remarks that were flying about, I figured I might soon be changing clubs. But things were happening fast, faster than I anticipated, and, before the turn of the year, I (not that I had really had that much to do with it) had signed for Everton. Here's how it happened.
I have already told you about the phone enquiries from the big clubs. Actually, I had learned afterward, Burnley had refused offers from eight clubs before agreeing to Everton's offer of �6,500 - which was, and still is, a record transfer fee for a boy under 21 years of age. On the afternoon of December 21st, at about 4.30, Everton directors Wilf Cuff and Tom Percy, together with manager Theo Kelly, were shown into the Burnley Boardroom, and, a few minutes later, I was sent for and told the situation.
Mr.Tom Clegg, the Burnley chairman, said, "Tom, these gentlemen (introducing them) are from Everton and want you to sign for the club. Will you go?" I asked leave to speak to my grandfather, who was the groundsman at Turf Moor. This request granted, I informed him of the position, and he came back to the Boardroom. I figured I ought to have an older man's advice on what, to me, was a big step. Grandad said he would like to come to Goodison to look after me, and suggested it would be possible for him to work on the ground. Eventually Mr.Cuff agreed, and I signed.
It was quite a big decision for me to make. Confident as I was - and a boy of 17 who knows he is going places is confident - I knew that when I got to Goodison Park I was to be understudy to one of the greatest centre-forwards the game has ever known, and whose name was a legend...Dixie Dean. However, I signed.
Mr.Kelly wanted me to go back to Liverpool with him as soon as I could get a bag packed. Everton had a match with Preston the following day, and he wanted me to see it, and meet the lads. But Grandad suggested it would be better if I travelled through in the morning, so it was fixed that I should catch the 9.8 from Burnley which would get me to Liverpool at 10.30.
Breaking in on myself for a moment, I had a moment of regret when I said goodbye to the good folk of Burnley that evening. They had all been extremely kind to me since that day, a boy of fourteen, I had rather nervously hung my hat up in the Burnley office and had hitched my waggon to their star, for good or ill.
From Chairman Tom Clegg to Ray Bennion, they had been friends. Alick Robinson, goalkeeper Adams, Bob Brocklebank, Ron Hornby, Gil Richmond, 'Dusty' Miller, Jimmy Stein, trainers Billy Dougal and Frank Hudspeth, and old player Mr.Brunton - but especially Tom Clegg and Ray Bennion. All had helped a youngster stand on his own feet, but had never willingly caused him to stumble or slip off the path to fame this eager, almost cocky, boy footballer was determined to travel. For coincidence collectors, I played against Doncaster Rovers in my first and last games for Burnley.
Well, there it was, my stay at Burnley was finished, and I was now a member of a great First Division club. Look out Everton; watch yourself, Dean; here I come.
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