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Date and Place of Birth 26th July 1965 - Birmingham
Transfers to and from Burnley from Crewe Alexandra - 2nd October 1987 (£15,000 - initial loan) to Barnsley - 26th July 1991 (£180,000)
First and Last Burnley Games Scarborough (a) - 3rd October 1987
Torquay United (h) - 22nd May 1991
Other Clubs Stoke City, Crewe Alexandra ---------------------------------------- Barnsley, York City (loan), Oxford United, Macclesfield Town |
Burnley Career Stats
| Season | League | FA Cup | League Cup | Others | Total | |||||
| apps | gls | apps | gls | apps | gls | apps | gls | apps | gls | |
| 1987/88 | 33 | 5 | - | - | 1 | - | 7 | - | 41 | 5 |
| 1988/89 | 37 | - | 1 | - | 3 | - | 3 | 1 | 44 | 1 |
| 1989/90 | 31 | 1 | 5 | - | - | - | 1 | - | 37 | 1 |
| 1990/91 | 46 | 5 | 3 | - | 3 | - | 7 | - | 59 | 5 |
| Total | 147 | 11 | 9 | - | 7 | - | 18 | 1 | 181 | 12 |
Profile by Tony Scholes
Burnley had survived with the win over Orient at the end of the 1986/87 season and with an influx of new players had started the following season reasonably well and had enjoyed a couple of weeks at the top of the league.
Into October and with a run of one point from three games Burnley strengthened the squad with the loan signing of Steve Davis from Crewe. This particular Steve Davis is formally Steven Peter Davis and is the first of the two Steve Davis' to play for us.
Davis had played for England at youth level having started as an apprentice at Stoke, but he didn't make it at the Victoria Ground and moved on to Crewe just at the time when they had appointed a new manager by the name of Dario Gradi.
He went straight into the Crewe squad and was in the side that started the 1983/84 season but by the start of the 1987/88 season had lost his place in the side and that allowed for his move to Burnley.
His Burnley debut came in our first ever league game at Scarborough where we lost 1-0 to Neil Warnock's side and he soon showed the sort of form that made you wonder how on earth Crewe hadn't been playing him.
The Burnley fans were delighted when, assisted by the 'Friends of the Clarets', a fundraising group set up from the Supporters' Club, we made his move to Turf Moor a permanent one for £15,000.
Davis was just the sort of defender we needed. He was very strong in the air but was also assured on the ground, and he also had a few goals in him. His partnership with Gardner allowed us to have a much better season that culminated in a trip to Wembley to play Wolves in the Sherpa Van Trophy Final.
He almost missed this final. In a league game against Scunthorpe on the penultimate Saturday of the season he was sent off in bizarre circumstances. The card came because he was the last man but the linesman was already flagging for offside. Despite the referee awarded the free kick to Burnley he still insisted that Davis had to go.
Thankfully Davis was allowed to play in the final although the Clarets, as we know, fell to a 2-0 defeat.
He was a shining light in the next two seasons as the Clarets struggled to have any sort of impact and during the 1989/90 season played alongside a new partner called Steve Davis (formally Stephen Mark Davis) who was on loan from Southampton.
In the summer of 1990 he replaced Ray Deakin as captain and had his best season yet. Manager Frank Casper brought in John Pender to partner him and the two of them had outstanding seasons as the club reached the play offs.
Unfortunately it all ended in disappointment and such was his form in that last season it was inevitable he would move on and upwards and he did just that, signing for Barnsley for £180,000. Manager Frank Casper had to find another central defender to replace him, and he did that by bringing in the other Steve Davis. He'd looked good on loan and this time we paid Southampton £60,000 for him.
His time at Oakwell was interrupted by injury and in the 1993/94 season he didn't play a single game, but he was still a success in Yorkshire and helped them progress towards the Premier League. Unfortunately another injury ended his 1996/97 season in January with Barnsley just four months away from that promotion.
It proved to be his last game for them and he didn't play again until September when he joined York on loan. The opponents that day were Burnley on the day Chris Waddle's side scored their first league goal of the season at the seventh attempt.
After a month at Bootham Crescent he signed for Oxford, initially on loan, and was there until the end of the 1999/2000 season. Again he played in a significant game against us, he was in their side for our last match of the last millennium when Andy Payton scored a hat trick in a 3-2 win.
He dropped into non-league in the summer of 2000 when he moved to Northwich Victoria and at the end of his first season there became assistant manager to Jimmy Quinn. When Quinn moved in the summer of 2003 Davis became manager but his reign was a short one.
By November he'd decided enough was enough and left the club to sign for Nantwich as a player. At the end of that 2003/04 season he was appointed manager and has become the club's most successful manager ever winning two promotions.
In October 2008 he was tipped to become the assistant manager of Port Vale but remained at Nantwich in the Unibond League.
The second Steve Davis became a big crowd favourite at Turf Moor, and with very good reason, but the first Steve Davis was also and excellent player for us. Had we beaten Torquay in that play off he would have almost certainly remained with the Clarets. Barnsley's gain was very much our loss.
After five successful years as manager of Nantwich Town, Davis went back to Crewe Alexandra where he made his first team debut back in the 1980s. He returned to Crewe as assistant manager to Gudjon Thordarson.
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