FOR those of us of a certain age, the games which evoke memories of childhood glee are less likely to be against Manchester United or Arsenal, but rather the likes of the visitors to Anfield this coming Saturday.
For most of you reading this, the name of Burnley will conjure up nothing more than an ignominious night in January 2005, when Rafa exposed a team of kids including Whitbread, Raven, Welsh and Potter to the cauldron of a Northern cup-tie against a side determined to give their Premier League betters a bloody nose.
Djimi Traore’s early audition for Strictly Come Dancing did for us that night, as he pirouetted on the goal-line to drag the ball into his own net. I confess I witnessed this humiliating exhibition from the comfort of a pub bar, having driven 230-odd miles for the original Friday night game, on my own, in appalling conditions only to find the match called off just as I had secured an amazing parking spot just 50 yards from the ground. Understandably I think I was not inclined to repeat this journey (even chimps learn), hence my residence in a local hostelry.
Despite this harrowing experience, the name of Burnley for me still brings a warm glow rather than the frozen digits which beset those unfortunates attending that cup-tie; few others invoke the nostalgia of adolescence quite as strongly. Colleagues at work smile patronisingly as I describe to them how, in the early sixties, the match that got the country’s pulse racing was not Liverpool v Manchester United, but Tottenham Hotspur v Burnley.
The 1962 Cup final between the teams is my earliest recollection of a televised game, broadcast on Grandstand in glorious black-and-white, as Jimmy Greaves, Bobby Smith and Danny Blanchflower saw Spurs to a 3-1 win against a Burnley side with 10 Englishmen and a Scot, Adam Blacklaw, in goal.
But my prime memory of Burnley is the part they played in a run of games which, to a 13-year-old boy in 1968, were the equivalent of the Real Madrid/Man Utd/Aston Villa treble last season. The first of the trilogy came in late September as Leicester City, another great team of the sixties, came to Anfield and found themselves 4-0 down after just 12 minutes. Among the scorers was Alun Evans, the country’s first £100,000 teenager, making his debut. I remember a latecomer muscling his way into the Anfield Road end, who just wouldn’t believe that he’d missed four goals. He didn’t see any more.
Next up in the League was Wolves away, with Alun Evans making a quick return to his old. Me and my brother badgered my Dad to drive to the game (you could just turn up ‘on spec’ then), and we witnessed an exhibition as Evans, Hunt and Thompson all scored twice in a 6-0 rout.
My Dad needed little encouragement to make the trip to Turf Moor the following week, and this time we were treated to a 4-0 romp. Three games, 14 goals scored, none conceded (and midweek cup wins against Swansea and Athletic Bilbao thrown in for good measure). The stuff of schoolboy dreams.
So I will give the Burnley a warm welcome; then hope we tear them to pieces and create another memory I can recount 40 years on.
