Next Game - Derby County (away)

Last updated : 04 October 2002 By Tony Scholes

The photograph above shows the Burnley players at the end of the game, for more photographs from the day and for all the match reports visit the CISA web site where you will find more and more about that great win.

Fabrizio Ravanelli
But from 1999 to 2002 and this is a football match where we can almost expect to see the begging bowls out with both clubs having financial problems. There is no doubt at all that Derby’s finances are critical and already one player, Danny Higginbotham, has given them 14 days notice after they failed to pay the players in August.

Whether Higginbotham will play or not remains to be seen but he has for now said he is fully focussed on the game tomorrow and will be giving it everything. Somehow I find that difficult to believe.

What is happening at Derby, at Leicester and if they were honest at Ipswich too is down to the fact that they have lost their places in the land of milk and honey known as the Barclaycard Premiership. Even with the parachute payments they find themselves unable to cope with players on big contracts. Derby have not managed to make one significant sale.

There stay in the Premiership was six years and for the last three they were strugglers, in fact when the Clarets played there three seasons ago they were already looking like relegation certainties although a recovery in the second half of the season rescued them.

Last season though they were always fighting a losing battle and twice changed manager in an attempt to fight off the inevitable. They tried to move the Bald Eagle Jim Smith upstairs but he chose to leave as Colin Todd took over. The former Derby defender lasted no time at all and was replaced by another former Ram in John Gregory who had just resigned at Villa.

In the end they didn’t come close to avoiding the drop and that’s when the problems started although to be fair they have made an average start to the season with three wins and three defeats.

It all got off to a good start with a comfortable opening day win at home to Reading (3-0) but they followed that up with a surprise 1-0 defeat at Gillingham. After getting back on the rails with a 2-1 win at Gillingham they suffered two very bad results. Firstly Wolves went away from Pride Park with a big 4-1 win and then two goals from former Claret Alan Lee beat them at Rotherham.

Malcolm Christie
It was at Rotherham where the club run up a £2,000 hotel bill that in the end had to be paid by manager John Gregory and he, like the players, is still awaiting last month’s pay. To their credit though they picked up last Saturday with a 2-0 against Stoke having just been told they wouldn’t be paid.

They have scored a total of nine goals and Malcolm Christie has scored four of them. There were strong rumours that Christie would have been sold before the transfer window deadline with Sunderland supposedly set to pay big money for him. That didn’t happen and the chance to wipe out some of the massive £30 million debts was lost.

His strike partner Fabrizio Ravanelli has scored one goal from three appearances, he hasn’t played in the last two games due to an achilles injury but could well come into contention on Saturday.

The 2-0 win against Stoke came with two late Christie goals and an apparently superb performance from substitute Giorgi Kinkladze. The former Manchester City player will not be available on Saturday due to being on international duty for Georgia. Goalkeeper Mart Poom will also be unavailable, playing for Estonia, and his place will go to former Burnley goalkeeper Andy Oakes.

The Derby team last week was; Mart Poom, Warren Barton, Danny Higginbotham, Chris Riggot, Richard Jackson, Adam Bolder, Rob Lee, Adam Murray (Giorgi Kinkladze 59), Paul Boertien, Branko Strupar, Malcolm Christie (Ian Evatt 90). Subs not used: Andy Oakes, Brian O’Neil, Gary Twigg.

Despite our win at Pride Park three seasons ago history says it will be tough, it is now 50 seasons since Burnley won a league match at Derby. Then Jackie Chew, Jimmy McIlroy and Billy Elliott scored in a 3-1 win.

He played for both

At the beginning of his career - receiving a Welsh Youth Cap from Burnley chairman Bob Lord watched by fellow Welshman Jeff Parton
The player we focus on today is a player who could also count QPR, Swansea, Sunderland, Bury and Newport as his former clubs. Derby are the only ones currently in our division and so we take the chance to look back at a player who was without doubt a great player – Leighton James.

Not many players get the opportunity to play for Burnley on three separate occasions although we do have Steve Davis currently in his third spell but Leighton (better known to Burnley fans as Taffy) actually went one better with four.

He started his career with the Clarets before signing for Derby in 1975 for a £300,000 plus transfer. Then it was QPR before he was back at the Turf in 1978. After a two year stay he went home to Swansea when they had their resurgence and then moved to the north east with Sunderland.

Bury was the next port of call to play for Martin Dobson and Frank Casper and then Newport before his third spell at Burnley. He signed in the summer of 1986 but after narrowly avoiding the drop to the Conference he was released on a free transfer.

Within weeks he was back as Youth Team Coach but then found himself back in the first team, in fact playing in the centre of defence. Two years later, after losing the coaching role, he was released as a player and his league playing career came to an end.

He is a player I knew well and when asked to describe him the words confident and arrogant always come readily to mind. He was a player of huge ability and on his day could destroy sides. His first team debut came at the age of 17 in a struggling side but within a year he had made the left-wing position his own at the expense of Steve Kindon.

Over the next four years Taffy was brilliant for the Clarets and the best full backs in the country feared playing against him. Not so Ian Wood at then 3rd Division Oldham. The day before a cup tie at Boundary Park his manager Jimmy Frizzell said that James wouldn’t get a kick against him.

Towards the end of his career - a home game against Cardiff in 1988
I would have loved to have seen Taffy’s face when he read that. As it happened he destroyed Wood, later to be a Claret himself, and with just five minutes gone the tie was over as he put in three superb crosses that all led to goals. One was amazingly disallowed but he had done his job and we went on to win 4-1.

Finances (yes it has always been about finances) brought about his move to Derby but chairman Bob Lord always said that given the chance he would bring him back. He did, in 1978, but his two year stay only resulted in relegation to Division Three for the first time in our history.

He became a star with the club he had always supported, Swansea City, as they took on the top clubs in the country but after that he slipped down the leagues and finished up fighting Burnley’s biggest ever battle against Orient. He himself described it as the most important game he had ever played in.

Taffy is now back in South Wales but was back in Burnley earlier this year to attend the funeral of his former coach George Bray. Love him or loathe him, and everyone who saw him as an opinion, he always cared deeply about Burnley Football Club and I reckon he still does.

He was without doubt one of the best players Burnley have produced in many years and was certainly one of our top players over the last thirty years and more.

League results in the last 20 years

Season

Div

Ven

Result

Att

Scorers

a

1984/85

3

h

0-1

3,484

a

2-2

11,755

Biggins Hird

1994/95

1

h

3-1

11,534

Shaw Davis

a

0-4

13,922

Last Time in the League

The programme from the 1999 Cup Tie
You have to be joking. Our last league visit to Derby, to the Baseball Ground, was eight seasons ago and to be honest it was one of those performances that you really would want to forget about.

And so a break with tradition this week and we will take a brief look back at a couple of cup ties during the last decade. To be fair to Derby we have chosen one that the Clarets did actually lose.

I don’t think anyone who was there will ever forget our FA Cup 3rd Round replay at Derby in January 1992. Having turned in an excellent performance at the Turf to draw 2-2 we were losing at Derby in the replay 2-0 when the fog came down and the game was abandoned.

History will say that we still lost 2-0 when it was replayed but that will never tell the story of the day the Burnley fans turned in what has to be their greatest ever performance. That it started when goalkeeper Chris Pearce gave away the second goal makes it even more remarkable but from that moment on and until long after the game had finished just about every Claret was on his feet in the most incredible show of support I have ever seen or heard.

At the end of the game the Derby fans just stood and applauded, they really couldn’t believe it. It was a cup defeat, but it remains an unforgettable experience.

John Sadler wrote about it two days later in a brilliant article that features in our What the Papers Say section. Click HERE to go directly to the article.

Andy Cooke turns away after scoring the winner
Memories of that day were rekindled three years ago when we went to the new Derby ground at Pride Park for another 3rd Round tie. This time it was another memorable day but on this occasion because of the players who turned in a superb performance to not just beat, but outplay the Premiership opposition.

Andy Cooke was the goalscoring hero but every single player was a hero as once again Derby were treated to the sounds of the Claret and Blue army.

We may not have the best of league records at Derby but I would never say no to going there for a cup tie.