Next Game - Crystal Palace (home)

Andy Johnson

At the time Palace were sixth in the league and the Clarets were top but both slipped eventually and Palace ended the season three places and nine points behind us despite having two players, Clinton Morrison and Dougie Freedman score over 20 league goals each.

They have had a somewhat up and down period over the last decade and have three times found themselves relegated from the Premiership. They were founder members in 1992 but went down at the end of that inaugural season with Nottingham Forest and Middlesbrough. They were third from bottom with Oldham pipping them on goal difference.

Within a year they were back up and a year after that down again. They still weren’t finished and after a two year stay in Division One they went back up but for the third time were immediately relegated. Since then they have remained in Division One.

For a time the club looked to be on the brink of collapse after Ron Noades left but they are now perhaps one of the better off clubs financially in the division under the control of Simon Jordan.

Over recent years it seems they have almost alternated between Steve Coppell and Alan Smith as manager but neither of them are with the club any longer and after a short period with Steve Bruce they have now had Trevor Francis in charge since the end of November last year.

Bruce and Francis have also been doing a bit of player swapping over the summer and the biggest loss to Palace was the departure of Clinton Morrison who joined Birmingham in a £4.25 million deal. American Jovan Kirovski has made the same journey on a free transfer but going the other way to join Palace have been strikers Andy Johnson and Dele Adebola. Johnson cost them £750,000 but former Burnley target Adebola was free.

Danny Butterfield

There were high hopes of a return to the Premiership before the season started but they have not made the best of starts and find themselves in 18^th place after winning just one of the first five games. That win came at Deepdale on the opening day of the season but since then they have collected points in home draws against Bradford and Leicester and been beaten at home to Portsmouth and at Coventry.

Probably the highlight of the season so far came in the home draw with Bradford at the time Bradford took the lead. Mr. Misery was banished to the stands after apparently clipping the ear of his sub keeper Alex Kolinko for laughing. Kolinko has since reported his manager for assault.

The Portsmouth defeat was particularly hard to take, they led 2-0 before going down 3-2. They have scored five goals in those five games with just Tony Popovic on two having scored more than one goal.

The last game was the 0-0 draw against Leicester on Tuesday and they lined up for that game: Matt Clarke, Curtis Fleming, Danny Granville, Danny Butterfield (Dele Adebola 62), Tony Popovic, Hayden Mullins, Andy Johnson, Dougie Freedman, Shaun Derry (Aki Riihilati), Steven Thomson (Wayne Routledge 85), Darren Powell. Subs not used: Alex Kolinko, Dean Austin.

One interesting statistic – this fixture two seasons ago was the last time Andy Payton started a game for the Clarets.

At the end of his last ever league game - that wonderful day at Scunthorpe

News had broken that the Clarets had agreed to sign Celtic striker Ian Wright for the rest of the season and to be honest, even though I had been tipped off at Bournemouth on the previous Saturday, I found it difficult to believe.

Burnley Football Club has twice been crowned Champions of England but in all its history I cannot believe we ever made a bigger signing than this. Phenomenal was the word Chairman Barry Kilby used to describe ticket sales in the first week as Burnley went pretty much Wright crazy.

It was to a large extent because of his Palace days that we got him in the first place, during that time he had worked for Stan and that along with his friendship with Mitchell Thomas saw the legend in a Claret and Blue shirt.

It is fair to say that more people will remember him from his Palace days than his Burnley days but ours are the two clubs he chose to start and end his career with. I think we both have to accept that his greatest days were at Arsenal where he broke the club’s goal scoring record.

Ten years earlier and scoring for Palace in the FA Cup Final

In some matches he came on with dramatic effect. Who can forget the last minute equaliser at Gillingham or the wonder late goal winner against Notts County on the Turf? Then there were the games at Oxford and Brentford when he helped turn the games round.

We never did see him at the Turf at his peak but there is no doubt at all that for those of us who saw him he will never be forgotten. We looked more than capable of winning a place in the play offs before he arrived but in the end finished up winning automatic promotion.

It is very difficult to argue against my belief, and without wishing to take a single thing away from any of the other players, that he was the catalyst who provided that final push towards that second place.

I can still recall the day of his debut and the constant chanting of Ian Wright-Wright-Wright yet still unable to really believe that he was there in a Claret and Blue shirt.

It was a night of very little goalmouth action and a night when at times we had to work very hard to prevent Palace from dominating possession. They were able to pass the ball around comfortably but we prevented them from creating much in the way of chances.

In fact it was a game of very few chances and in the end we were just about worth the win, a much welcome three points after recent weeks. It was also refreshing to keep a clean sheet, we had conceded six goals in the previous two home games against Crewe and Barnsley, two sides who went on to suffer relegation.

This game though had its own star attraction besides Paul Cook and that was Northumberland referee Mark Clattenburg who turned in an absolutely disgraceful performance. Apart from hounding Gareth Taylor constantly all night he had great difficulty in getting the simplest of decisions right, ignored his assistants throughout. We perhaps shouldn’t have been surprised, this referee was already making a name for himself.

But we must end where we started with Cooky’s goal, worth the admission money on its own despite whinging Palace boss Steve Bruce suggesting that it was a fluke. We know it wasn’t.

The teams were:

Burnley: Nik Michopoulos, Paul Weller, Ian Cox, Steve Davis, Arthur Gnohere, Lee Briscoe, Tony Grant, Kevin Ball, Paul Cook (Gordon Armstrong 75), Ian Moore (Andy Payton 81), Gareth Taylor (Glen Little 88). Subs not used: Luigi Cennamo, Dean West.

Crystal Palace: Matt Clarke, Jamie Smith (Tommy Black 58), Hayden Mullins, Clinton Morrison, Simon Rodger (Steve Thomson 77), Aki Riihilahti, Julian Gray, Jovan Kirovski, Tony Popovic, Steve Vickers, David Hopkin. Subs not used: Alex Kolinko, Dean Austin, Craig Harrison.

Referee: Mark Clattenburg (Northumberland).