Clarets 100 Great Moments – 100 to 91

Spurs prevented it from being a spectacle as they chose to spend the entire 90 minutes of the game trying to kick the Clarets senseless. Burnley retained their discipline, apart from one wonderful incident following a kick at goalkeeper Adam Blacklaw by Tottenham's Dyson. Adam got up and chased him down the pitch and was only stopped from getting to him by four other Burnley players.

We got the last laugh against the bad losers from London though and won the game easily by a 3-0 scoreline with goals from John Connelly, Andy Lochhead and Gordon Harris.

It was a great result and a great performance but according to the Tottenham biased national press it was because of the state of the pitch. That's right we didn't get much good press even then.

Even over forty years ago there were players at Burnley more popular than others, those who could do no wrong and those who could seemingly do little right. This was unfortunately the case at times with Jimmy Robson.

In November 1959 we beat Forest 8-0 on the Turf and Jimmy scored five of the goals. There was huge debate as to just how well he had played, after all five goals from one player is an exceptional achievement. As the fans left the ground one supporter leaving the Bee Hole End was heard to say, "we've played well but we would have won a lot easier if we had a better inside left than Robson."

Just shows you can't please all of the people all of the time.

For some strange reason the Football Association decided in the early 1970s to introduce a 3^rd/4^th place play off as a curtain raiser for the FA Cup Final. It was greeted with something less than enthusiasm by the clubs.

The Clarets duly took part in this farce of a game in 1974 against Leicester City having lost to Newcastle in the semi-final. Curiously the Final curtain raiser was played five days after the final and was moved to Filbert Street from Turf Moor because we were getting a new pitch.

We won the game 1-0 with a Ray Hankin goal in front of a less than capacity crowd of just 4,432. The FA realised that it was a waste of time and scrapped the idea leaving the Clarets as the last club to finish 3^rd in the FA Cup.

Andy Marriott - now at Barnsley

We tried to sign him on a permanent basis but failed and Marriott played just fifteen games for us. His last was at Northampton, a 2-1 win, and at the end of the game he received the most incredible reception from the Burnley supporters packed into the open end at the county cricket ground.

Any outsider looking in would have been convinced that it was a player who was retiring after giving the club years of marvellous service, not a young keeper who had been with the club for just three months on loan.

Ten years on and there is still a rapport between Andy and the Turf Moor crowd. He is now with Barnsley and was in their team for the 3-3 draw at the Turf in October 2001. He was still afforded a fantastic reception as Turf Moor rose to its feet.

In the qualifying group for the 1962 World Cup Finals in Chile England needed to beat Portugal at Wembley. The game was played in October 1961 and England won their place in the finals by winning the game 2-0.

The scorers of the goals were John Connelly and Ray Pointer. The national press finally had to give us some credit because we had won England a place in the finals. This was Ray Pointer's second goal in his third game for England. Incredibly it proved to be his last cap, he was never selected again.

Denis Smith - sent off for staying on

It was January 1980 and we were playing Stoke at HOME in the FA Cup 3^rd round. It was a close game with the score still at 0-0 with not much more than ten minutes to play when McNally decided enough was enough and he would liven things up.

He gave us the most dubious looking penalty that Martin Dobson converted to give us a 1-0 win and sent off a Stoke player for arguing (they were then down to nine). This was just a minute after we had committed the worst foul of the afternoon and got away with it.

Shortly before all this though he waved his red card for the most bizarre of reasons. Stoke decided to bring on their sub for Denis Smith who was limping and when play stopped McNally authorised the change. Smith though went over and told the bench he was fit to continue and stayed on the pitch. McNally was having none of it and sent him off.

Nobody to this day knows the reason he gave.

It was the opening day of the season, a day you hope things will go well to give the season a good start. In 1981 we faced the long trip to Gillingham for the opening day fixture and we 1-0 down at half time and not playing well. It only needed a goal though and we would be back in it.

Shortly after the restart Brian Laws scored the most incredible of goals. He picked the ball up in the centre circle and turned towards his own goal. After just a few steps he unleashed an unstoppable shot that sailed past his own keeper Alan Stevenson. We did score in the right end later through Steve Taylor but lost the game 3-1.

In the 1994/95 season we were drawn against York City in the 1^st round of the League Cup. We won the first leg at home 1-0 before drawing the second leg 2-2 at Bootham Crescent.

It was in the second leg that Chris Vinnicombe received a yellow card from one of the league's new referees Uriah Rennie not once but twice. As Rennie waved the yellow card at him for the second time Vinnicombe started his walk towards the tunnel before realising that he had not followed it up with a red.

He stayed on the field until the end of the game and after a complaint from York the referee explained that he had decided to scrub the first yellow card. Rennie was disciplined.

Roger Eli - scored the second goal

We simply tore Northampton apart and the 5-0 scoreline did not flatter us at all, in fact it could have been more. We attacked our visitors right from the kick off and they simply couldn't contain the pace of the Burnley forwards and in particular John Francis who had one of his best games for the Clarets.

When John scored his goal that night it was great reward for his man of the match performance. That night the goals were actually scored by the players wearing the shirt numbers 7 through to 11 although admittedly not scored in shirt number order.

John Deary (number 8) scored the only goal of the first half but the Clarets went on the rampage after the interval. Roger Eli (number 11) made it 2-0 and shortly afterwards it was 3-0 with a goal from Mike Conroy (number 10). Late goals from Steve Harper (number 7) and John Francis (number 9) completed the scoring.

Prior to the 1965/66 season the Football League introduced substitutes for the first time. It was an experiment for league games, nothing quite so revolutionary would be allowed in the FA Cup. The one substitute would only be allowed to replace a player if that player was unable to continue through injury.

The Clarets opened the season with a 1-1 draw at Chelsea followed by a 3-1 home win against Blackpool but on neither occasion did a player receive an injury that forced him from the field.

Next was Arsenal and their usual rough tactics, particularly aimed at Willie Irvine, prevented him from coming back out for the second half. His replacement was Ian Towers who wore no number on his back.