Ron Futcher

Last updated : 30 June 2013 By Tony Scholes

Date and Place of Birth

25th September 1956 - CHESTER

 

Transfers to and from Burnley

from PORT VALE - November 1989 (£65,000)

released - July 1991

 

First and last Burnley Games

LINCOLN CITY (a) - 25th November 1989

 

TORQUAY UNITED (h) - 22nd May 1991

 

Other Clubs

CHESTER CITY, LUTON TOWN, MANCHESTER CITY,

MINNESOTA KICKS, PORTLAND TIMBERS, SOUTHAMPTON,

TULSA ROUGHNECKS, NAC BREDA, BARNSLEY,

OLDHAM ATHLETIC, BRADFORD CITY, PORT VALE

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

CREWE ALEXANDRA

 

 

Burnley Career Stats

 

Season League   FA Cup   League Cup   Others   Total  
                     
  apps gls apps gls apps gls apps gls apps gls
1989/90 22(1) 7 6 3 - - 1 - 29(1) 10
1990/91 30(4) 18 2(1) - 2 1 4 1 38(5) 20
                     
Total 52(5) 25 8(1) 3 2 1 5 1 67(6) 30

 

Profile by Tony Scholes

 

In November 1989 Burnley manager Frank Casper increased his attacking options with the capture of 33-year-old Ron Futcher from Port Vale in a £60,000 transfer.

The Clarets were struggling for goals. We were averaging just about a goal per game and the two summer signings expected to score our goals were struggling. Peter Mumby had netted just three league goals. That was three more than Tony Hancock. He'd arrived from Stockport in a blaze of publicity but had struggled to get a game, let alone score a goal.

And so we turned to a player who had started his career in his home town of Chester along with his twin brother Paul, a central defender.

He played just four games for Chester before making the move to Luton in 1974. It was part of the deal that took Paul to Kenilworth Road with Luton having just won promotion to the First Division. He was considered the makeweight in the deal which was £125,000 for the pair but in fairness he did well.

Luton were relegated after just one season but Futcher scored a total of 17 First Division goals for them including a hat trick against Wolves, and he remained at Luton for another three years taking his total to 40 league goals.

He moved back to the North West in the summer of 1978 and again it was on the back of a deal involving twin brother Paul with both signing for Manchester City. Here he netted 7 First Division goals in just 17 appearances in his debut season but that 1978/79 season proved to be his last in English football for a while.

Like a lot of players at the time he'd been playing all year round with summer deals in America where he'd been playing for Minnesota Kicks since 1976. In 1979 he made the move a permanent one and was in America almost exclusively until 1984.

He remained with Minnesota until they folded in 1981 and then played for Portland Timbers and, after a short but fruitless return to England with Southampton, Tulsa Roughnecks.

He enjoyed some great success in America. He scored 119 goals which was the fourth highest in the North American Soccer League behind Italian Georgio Chinaglia (193), ex-Middlesbrough striker Alan Willey (129) and West German Karl-Heinz Granitza (128).

1984 brought a return to Europe, firstly in the Eerste Division of the Dutch League with NAC Breda and then to Barnsley ahead of the 1984/85 season. The next five and a half years saw him score 73 goals for Barnsley, Oldham, Bradford City and Port Vale before he arrived at Burnley.

His Burnley debut came in the FA Cup against Stockport. We hadn't won an FA Cup tie for four years. We drew the game 1-1 but Futcher scored his first Burnley goal three days later in the replay, an equaliser in a game we won 2-1 at Edgeley Park.

The teams struggle for goals was highlighted in the fact that his seven league games in 23 appearances were enough for him to end the 1989/90 season as joint top scorer with Winston White.

There was no joint about it in the 1990/91 season, his only full season at Turf Moor. He scored twenty times with 18 of them coming in 34 league appearances. A sending off at Maidstone towards the end of the season meant he missed the first leg of the play-off game against Torquay but he returned for the second leg as we failed to reach Wembley.

Just a couple of days after the game there was speculation that he was to leave the club but nothing was said until early July. Manager Casper was away and it was left to his assistant Jimmy Mullen to break the news.

He said: "Following discussions with Ron Futcher, Burnley Football Club have announced that they have terminated the player's contract by mutual consent. Ron has done a tremendous job for us and now it is very important that we find the right replacement for him."

Mullen immediately dismissed the rumour that it would be Simon Garner, but it appeared, although it was never confirmed, that Futcher's relationship with Mullen was the reason for him wanting to go.

He signed for Crewe and spent one season at Gresty Road during which he made two visits to Turf Moor. The first came early in the season when he was sent off playing for Crewe after a clash with Steve Harper.

The second visit was as a spectator for an England schoolboys international. His nephew Daniel Murphy was playing for England, yes the Murphy who went on to play for England at full international level and for clubs such as Liverpool and Spurs.

As for Ron Futcher; after Crewe he played two games in non-league football with Boston before returning to America to take up a coaching career.

At the time of writing he is the under-17 coach at Tampa Bay United and also, along with fellow coach Steve Wolf, runs 'Futcher Wolf Soccer Excellence' which is considered to be the premier supplementary training business for soccer players in the Tampa Bay area.

As for Futcher the Claret; he was certainly a player who divided opinion with supporters. His lack of pace was often highlighted by his detractors but he did score goals for us and he was part of the team that finally got us moving forward in the Fourth Division.

By the time he left he'd scored a total of 30 league and cup goals in just 73 appearances and I'm sure had a positive influence on players such as John Francis and Roger Eli who had played alongside him.