Leighton James

Date and Place of Birth 16th February 1953 - Llwchwyr   Transfers to and from Burnley see below   First and Last Burnley Games Nottingham Forest (h) - 21st November 1970   Scarborough (h) - 13th May 1989 replaced by Shaun McGrory   Other Clubs ---------------------------------------- Derby County, Queens Park Rangers, Swansea City, Sunderland, Bury, Newport County

Transfers to and from Burnley 

 youth from summer 1969
to Derby County November 1975 £310,000

from Queens Park Rangers September 1978 £165,000
to Swansea City May 1980 £130,000

from Newport County July 1986
released May 1987

player/youth coach from July 1987
released May 1989

Burnley Career Stats

Profile by Tony Scholes

I would think many Burnley supporters who started watching the club in the early 1970s would consider Leighton James as one of their favourite ever Burnley players as he played a starring role in the Clarets winning promotion back to, and then establishing themselves in, the first division.

It was a good time to be watching Burnley, over a three year period from spring 1972 to spring 1975 and there is no doubt that James (or Taffy to most Burnley fans) showed some fantastic form during that time. Incredibly he was still a young player and as the 1974/75 season drew to a close he was still only 22.

He's from a place I wouldn't even try to pronounce, but it's near Swansea and that has given him a view of Cardiff City that, I would say, is similar to mine of Blackburn Rovers, but it was to the North West of England that he headed when he started his footballing career.

He'd played international football at schoolboy level for Wales and signed for Burnley as an apprentice in October 1968, just after the club had won the FA Youth Cup. It wasn't long before people were talking about this slight, ginger haired lad who with his spectacles looked anything like a potential footballer.

But on the pitch he was transformed and quickly made progress through our junior teams. On his 17^th birthday in February 1970 he signed professional forms and by the end of that year he'd made his first team debut.

Often when kids get their chance in the first team so young it is because the team isn't playing well. That, in all fairness, was the situation here. It was the season our 24 year run in the first division came to an end when he made a winning debut against Nottingham Forest in November 1970.

Taffy made just four appearances that season, and with Steve Kindon occupying the left wing berth he wasn't in the team when we kicked off the following season at Cardiff, of all places, back in the second division.

You can't keep talent out for too long though. He sat out the first five games of the season before replacing Kindon at Fulham in game number six. We won that day 2-0 and he scored both goals, his first for the club at first team level.

He didn't miss a game for the rest of the season, in fact it would be over two and a half years before Jimmy Adamson next named a Burnley side without him.

That first full season with him in the side was decidedly difficult at times, but we won the last six games which really set us up for the following 1972/73 season.

That season brought us the second division title, the next season saw us reach the FA Cup Semi-Final and within one point of European qualification and in 1974/75 it was only in the last few games when injuries brought an end to a real chance of lifting the league title, eventually won by Derby County.

During this time, the young James was at times brilliant. I think it is only right to say he displayed a distinct level of arrogance, and he was certainly the player that home fans, when we were on the road, simply hated.

Not as though it bothered him. That level of arrogance at times upset some of his team mates. Taffy was somewhat self centred and certainly very full of himself. There was a time when he couldn't wear his contact lenses under floodlight and was asked: "Can you seen the ball?" The answer was swift and to the point. "I don't need to, I can smell it."

I'd been brought up with great wingers at Burnley in those heady days of the 1960s but here was one every bit as good as I'd seen, and better than most of them. He turned in some fantastic performances and got his fair share of goals too, including some great strikes.

He wasn't overlooked by his country either and won the first of 53 caps in October 1971 against Czechoslovakia in Prague, but it was a game at Wrexham that I can recall when the Welsh beat Austria 1-0 with a goal from Arfon Griffiths.

That was in November 1975 and by then we'd started to struggle again. There were rumours that he might be the next player sold, but that night he played his part in that crucial win. The Saturday before he'd lined up for Burnley in a heavy 5-1 home defeat against Wolves but by the following Saturday he was no longer with us and had signed for reigning champions Derby County for a fee in excess of £300,000, and that was a massive fee in 1975.

Our great talent had gone, and with no disrespect to either Paul Bradshaw or Colin Morris, the wide players waiting literally in the wings, the side had been weakened beyond belief.

Dave Mackay was the manager at Derby and he reached another FA Cup Semi-Final, again ending on the losing side, but when Tommy Docherty became manager in September 1977 his days were numbered and a month later signed for QPR for a knock down £180,000.

Bob Lord had been asked, of all the players he'd sold which one would he like to bring back. Without hesitation he said Leighton James, and he did just that in September 1978 when we brought him back to Turf Moor from QPR.

By then we were a struggling second division side. In that first season we won the Anglo-Scottish Cup but the 1979/80 season proved to be a disaster for Burnley as we suffered relegation to the third division for the first time.

He wasn't anything like the player he'd been in his first spell. He had some excellent games but he wasn't as consistent although in that 1979/80 season he did score a fabulous goal on the snow at Turf Moor against Fulham in a televised game.

Birmingham were our last home opponents that season and he played in that game. A week later we travelled to Watford for the last game of the season, a day when Brian Miller gave young full back Brian Laws his debut. On that day, incredibly, Leighton James played for Swansea at Charlton having been signed during the week.

He'd joined the John Toshack revolution at the Vetch Field that led the club right to the top of the first division. He seemed to rediscover all his old form and was a formidable player in that all star Swansea side. We'd seen it in the summer of 1980 when he turned in a simply magnificent performance for Mike England's Welsh side who hammered England 4-1 at Wrexham.

When it all ended at Swansea he moved to Sunderland before teaming up with Martin Dobson and a host of ex-Clarets at Bury. From there it was back to South Wales and Newport County where he was also player-manager for a short time.

By now his first club Burnley were in trouble. We'd just spent our first ever season in the fourth division and Brian Miller had returned as manager for a second spell. Taffy was one of two former Clarets he turned to for help.

He was 33 now, and past his best, but I dread to think what might have happened that season without him. He gave us just enough in enough games to keep us from that trap door. I couldn't believe I was seeing Leighton James playing for us in the fourth division, this great talent now playing in such a struggling Burnley team.

At the season's end, and with safety won, he was released to bring his third association with the club to an end. Within weeks he was back, this time as youth team coach, and when Ray Deakin suffered an injury he found himself back in the first team playing in a defensive role.

That season saw him play at Wembley in the Sherpa Van Trophy Final but the following season did finally end his time at Burnley. When Miller gave way to the returning Frank Casper, he was immediately stripped of his coaching role. He went back into the first team for a few games before eventually being released again.

He remained in the game for a while as a coach at Bradford City, then manager at Gainsborough Trinity, Morecambe, Darwen and Netherfield before becoming a pundit on Radio Lancashire.

Eventually he returned to South Wales where he had a couple of spells as manager of Llanelli whilst also continuing his media work. That media work became big news after a very public fall out led to him having a live stand up row with Robbie Savage.

Taffy said he was paid to give his opinions and that's what he'd do. But that was Taffy, he never held back and would always say what he thought no matter who was on the receiving end.

When I look back, Leighton James is a player I will always remember with some affection. He was fantastic for Burnley Football Club, particularly in that first spell as a young player when at times he tore teams apart.

Poor Ian Wood, who eventually signed for Burnley, was one victim. We played Oldham in the FA Cup in 1974 and their manager Jimmy Frizzell said that James wouldn't get anywhere against his right back Wood. Three times in the first five minutes he was ripped apart by Taffy and on all three occasions we found the net, one of them strangely disallowed.

Frizzell had amazingly wound him up and angered him, not the wisest thing to do. He simply murdered Oldham and Wood that afternoon.

I got to know him really well during his time at Burnley and, despite his ability to be somewhat abrupt, he was a good man who would go out of his way to help people. He also enjoyed some good times with a number of local cricket clubs in the Lancashire and Ribblesdale Leagues. He was a fine batsman.

He might be back in his native Wales now, but there's still a bit of Burnley in Leighton James and there's still a great memory of him for all of us who saw him turn it on so often in a claret and blue shirt and I'm sure many of us would have him in our all time Burnley XI.