Eric Probert

Last updated : 07 July 2013 By Tony Scholes

Date and Place of Birth

17th February 1952 - SOUTH KIRKBY

died September 2004

 

Transfers to and from Burnley

apprentice then pro - October 1969

to NOTTS COUNTY - July 1973 (£30,000)

 

First and Last Burnley Games

ARSENAL (h) - 30th November 1968

 

PORTSMOUTH (h) - 20th March 1973

sub: replaced Keith Newton

 

Other Clubs

----------------------------------------

NOTTS COUNTY, HUDDERSFIELD TOWN (loan),

DARLINGTON, ROCHDALE

 

 

Burnley Career Stats

 

Season League   FA Cup   League Cup   Others   Total  
                     
  apps gls apps gls apps gls apps gls apps gls
1968/69 7 2 - - - - - - 7 2
1969/70 10(2) 1 - - - - - - 10(2) 1
1970/71 30(1) 5 1 - 1 - - - 32(1) 5
1971/72 15(1) 3 - - 1 - - - 16(1) 3
1972/73 0(1) - - - - - 2 - 2(1) -
                     
Total 62(5) 11 1 - 2 - 2 - 67(5) 11

 

Profile by Tony Scholes

 

Some young players arrive at Burnley from school and are considered to have massive potential. Some of those players go on to have great careers but others, for whatever reason, never quite realise that promise.

That was probably very much the case with Eric Probert, the midfielder from our FA Youth Cup winning team of 1967/68, who arrived at Burnley after scouts initially saw him turn in an impressive performance for Yorkshire Schoolboys against Lancashire.

By that time he was already attracting interest. He'd had trials with both Leeds and Huddersfield but it looked as though Sheffield Wednesday would be the winners for his signature. He was set to sign for them when Burnley moved in and in no time he signed for the Clarets as an associate schoolboy ahead of him joining the club.

His arrival, as a 15-year-old, could not have been better timed. He joined Burnley in the summer of 1967 and enjoyed a superb first season. Such was his initial impact that he was soon playing in reserve team games, impressing Turf Moor fans with his all action style. Despite his stature, he was around 5ft 8ins, he was a strong competitor who was certainly not afraid of a tackle.

He won his place in the youth team in the number eight shirt and was a regular member of the only Burnley team to date to lift the FA Youth Cup. Probert was the youngest player in the team, aged just 16 when we lifted the trophy with a two legged win against Coventry in May 1968.

During the autumn of 1968 we went on a run of eight consecutive wins. When it came to an end we were hit with an injury crisis and that led to Probert getting a first team debut against Arsenal  in the November.

He was still three months away from his 17th birthday and thus became only the second 16-year-old to play first team football for Burnley in the post-war years, joining his youth team winning team mate Dave Thomas in that achievement.

He had to wait until the end of the season for his second appearance. He came in for a home game against Tottenham and scored the opening goal in a game that ended 2-2 after we'd twice held the lead.

There were six games remaining after that and he played in all but one of them, and scored again in the last match of the season which was a 2-1 home defeat against Sunderland, a game re-arranged after it had previously been postponed and then abandoned with Burnley leading 1-0.

If supporters thought he was going to establish himself in the first team during the next season they were to be disappointed. He hardly featured and half of his ten starts during that season came in the last five games.

That led to a much more productive season for him personally although not for Burnley. He played in 31 of our 42 league games in the 1970/71 season as First Division status was lost after 24 years.

He scored five times during the season. He got both in a 2-1 home win against Crystal Palace and then scored the second as we beat Nottingham Forest by the same score. His two other goals came in the two games against Newcastle, a 3-1 defeat at St. James' Park and a 1-1 draw at home.

Five goals might not seem significant but he ended the season as leading goalscorer, the least number of goals ever required in a Burnley season to come out on top. He edged it from Frank Casper and Martin Dobson who both scored four times.

Whether he seemed to end seasons better than he started, I don't know, but down in Division Two he played only two games, one as a substitute, in the first 28 games but then regained his place and played in all of the last 14.

He played an influential part in the last six games which were all won and scored the only goals in the 1-0 wins at Swindon and at home to Preston.

Eric Probert was now very much a first choice. Manager Jimmy Adamson confirmed it but the pre-season in 1973 wasn't kind to him. More than once he was forced off with injuries and he wasn't fit as the season kicked off with a home game against Carlisle.

Unfortunately he was ruled out for a lot of the season and when he was fit again he'd only been able to watch as players such as Geoff Nulty and, more so, Doug Collins had established themselves as first team regulars.

He was named as a substitute for the home game against Portsmouth in March 1973 and replaced Keith Newton during the game. His previous appearance, the last game of the 1971/72 season, had been against Portsmouth at Fratton Park.

His return came in the 85th minute of the game and those last few minutes proved to be the last first team action he saw at Burnley.

In the summer of 1973, as we prepared for a return to the First Division, he was sold to Notts County for £30,000.

He spent five years at Meadow Lane. He was a key player in the first three seasons but injuries cut short his appearances in the next two. He did make 122 league appearances for them during which he scored 14 times.

A short loan at Huddersfield brought him no first team action and in the summer of 1978 he left Notts and signed for Darlington. Two years at Feethams saw him score once in twenty games and in the summer of 1980 he signed for Rochdale.

He was there only until September and didn't play a game for them before, at the age of just 28, hanging up his boots.

By that time he'd moved into the pub trade. In the summer of 1977, while still a Notts County player, I was in a group of Burnley fans that, by chance, bumped into him behind the bar in a pub in Boroughbridge in North Yorkshire.

Eric Probert disappeared from the world of football but sadly, in September 2004, came news of his death at the age of 52. His life, like his football career, had not been anywhere near long enough.

He was definitely one player who came to Burnley and promised so much but, maybe because of injuries, never quite reached the levels expected of him.