Referee Thomas costs Clarets at Goodison

Last updated : 06 October 2015 By Tony Scholes

The big news of the week centred on the final stage of Burnley's multi-million pound central area redevelopment with the council confirming that work would begin in early 1974 on the demolition of the Palace block on St. James' Street to bring the town's central shopping area equal to any in the country.

The future of the old Palace had been a matter of speculation for some time with some sad to see the end of the historic building but it was to be demolished along with the remaining buildings at the back of the site.

What was going to replace it? The major aspect of this latest development was to be a massive new Woolworth's store along with a basement car park for 200 vehicles and it would also house another large store, a multi-story office block, some smaller shops and a mall connecting it all to St. James' Street.

Town Clerk, Mr Brian Whittle, said: "The developers and the corporation have reached agreement on the final phase, subject to some planning permission, and we expect building to start early in the New Year. In the mid-60s the cost of the scheme was estimated at £5 million, but at the moment I can't say what it will be."

Woolworth's, the town's oldest established major store, would move from its then site at the junction of Hammerton Street and St. James' Street.

Burnley was proving popular and none more so than with Cigarette Components Ltd., a London based company who had made the decision to open a new filter tip factory in Burnley. "We are happy to be moving to Burnley," said manufacturing director Mr. R. T. Stephenson.

"We searched the country for a suitable place to operate, and we just liked the look of Burnley. It's communications and reputation for good labour relations attracted us", he added.

Burnley folk are not too keen on going to Blackburn, but for 16-year-old Kathleen Jeffries it became a nightmare when she, along with her boyfriend, were stuck in a lift at a high rise block of flats. She confirmed that after being in there for half an hour they raised the alarm and were eventually freed by the fire service before being taken to Blackburn Infirmary for treatment. I did wonder why they waited so long to raise the alarm. What on earth could the two teenagers have been doing for half an hour in a stuck lift?

When Burnley play a home game now on Boxing Day, I have to walk down to the Turf because of there being no bus service. It wasn't like that in 1973. In that year we were due to play Liverpool at home on Boxing Day and the Burnley, Colne and Nelson Joint Transport Committee decided to bolster the service with extra buses because of the game.

It was a two way thing with the bus service benefiting from the club playing First Division football. General manager, Mr. D. C. Chaplin, explained: "Since the club's promotion our passengers have increased considerably and this has made a tremendous difference to our receipts. Now Burnley are getting good gates, it means an additional £400 in revenue for one match."

These were the days when you got in serious trouble for stealing a few quid. A 16-year-old youth was convicted of four charges of burglary. He stole property valued at £27.25 from a lock-up shop, £28.21 from a warehouse, £1.20 from one house and 60p from another.

Judge Philip Kershaw considered him a menace to society and order that he spend a period of time in borstal for training.

There were worse crimes and one 20-year-old was up in front of the magistrates having been found uprooting a plant outside the crown court before replanting it in a pot in Parker Lane. He was fined £5 and ordered to pay a further 20p restitution to Burnley Corporation for the cost of the plant.

The steward of a local club had a good idea. Thomas Hughes, the steward at Keighley Green Social Club, decided to help himself to aid his pastime of gambling. The big problem he had was being caught when a fifth successive stocktaking showed deficiencies.

Mr Hughes was unable to explain the last of them so the committee called in a professional stocktaker and the police. That led to Mr Hughes being asked about £700 missing. He said: "Well, I don't agree with the figures. It wasn't that much."

In court, Mr David Hodson (defending) said that when a man of 39, as Hughes was, has held a responsible position and finds himself before a court on such charges it is a matter of sadness for him and a matter of concern for everyone.

"It is all the more sad when one understands that he has been held in high regard in the club world," Mr Hodson added.

Mr Hughes had his employment terminated after Burnley Crown Court handed him a nine month custodial sentence.

The town had decided to launch a massive road safety campaign for Burnley's old folk after they received frightening accident figures for over 65s. All five people killed on the town's roads in the past year had been over the age of 65 and out of 70 serious injuries in accidents, 14 were pensioners - 20% of the total number.

Mr J. D. Mackie, the accident prevention officer, said: "The figures are frightening and we must make every effort to get to our senior citizens and make them more safety conscious. We must warn them of the dangers of crossing the road, and making them realise that they must judge the speed of traffic.

"If they can, they should wear something white at night, and not be afraid to ask younger people to help them cross the roads. Younger and middle aged people can also help by being more willing to escort pensioners across the roads, but pensioners themselves must also try not to be as independent as sometimes they are. They must realise that there's nothing wrong with being helped across a busy road."

The business efficiency exhibition had been held at Olympia in London and local company F. H. Brown had decided to have one of their own to run for five days at their Calder Vale showrooms.

They were set to display everything needed for the modern office. The office world was a changing place and on view would be all the new essentials such as calculators, photocopying machines and wall charts.

On the subject of local business, two of Burnley's players had set up their own company with Frank Casper and Jim Thomson launching CTM to specialise in the latest methods of industrial and domestic cleaning. "Whatever it is we can clean it," was the firm's motto.

Casper was out of the side with the injury sustained in the home draw against Spurs, but Thomson was very much needed as the Clarets travelled to Goodison Park to take on Everton. Ahead of the game, we were in second place in the table with Everton fifth, just three points behind us.

By the time we got home they'd got within a point after a 1-0 win against us that led to Burnley boss Jimmy Adamson fuming after the game was decided by a controversial penalty awarded by referee Clive Thomas of Treochy, a referee who was never far away from controversy and criticism.

He had what some would describe as a typical Thomas performance, one littered with any number of strange decisions. He was a referee who was constantly criticised by players and managers alike and was one of the most unpopular amongst them.

Dave Lawson saves this effort from Leighton James

Burnley went into the game without Colin Waldron who was starting a three match suspension having been sent off in the League Cup game against Cardiff. Billy Rodaway came in to partner Thomson in the defence, making his First Division debut, in what was an otherwise unchanged team. He made a poor mistake early in the game but the Liverpool born player settled down to have a decent ninety minutes.

Burnley hadn't started the game well enough but the score remained at 0-0 until the 27th minute when a ball from Mike Bernard was fired at Keith Newton's arm from around two yards away and Thomas incredibly pointed to the penalty spot.

Newton, making his first return to Goodison Park since joining Burnley from them in the summer of 1972, said of the decision: "It was diabolical. If they are going to give penalties for that they will give them for anything."

Thomas said: "There was no need for him to have his arm there. He should have moved his head towards the ball and headed it away."

Tellingly, Everton boss Billy Bingham said: "We've had several penalty decisions turned down recently and I'm pleased that this referee was kind enough to give us this one."

There was no question over the spot kick. Dave CLEMENTS gave Alan Stevenson no chance as he gave the Toffees the lead.

As close as we came with Paul Fletcher hitting the post

Sadly, we didn't play anything like we should have done otherwise we might have overcome the injustice. We did try to pick things up in the second half and got ourselves into it more once Martin Dobson had been pushed up front.

Our only real threat was coming from Leighton James who was having his own personal tussle with Terry Darracott; the Everton defender was finally booked by Thomas for a poor challenge on the Clarets' left winger.

We did hit the post through Paul Fletcher soon after James had seen an effort brilliantly saved by Dave Lawson, but there was to be no comeback here.

It was a very restrained Adamson who spoke after the game. He said: "There is lots I could say about the penalty, but I won't. The goal changed the tactics of the match and was a severe blow to us."

Admitting that we hadn't played well in the first half, he added: "I thought we played a lot better in the second half. Martin Dobson was pushed forward in a bid to put us more on the attack, but it was difficult for us to break through when they were packing their defence so thoroughly."

The teams were;

EVERTON: Dave Lawson, Terry Darracott, John McLaughlan, Dave Clements, Roger Kenyon, John Hurst, Mike Bernard, Mike Buckley, Terry Lyons (David Irving 75), Joe Harper, John Connolly.

BURNLEY: Alan Stevenson, Peter Noble, Keith Newton, Martin Dobson, Jim Thomson, Billy Rodaway, Geoff Nulty, Ray Hankin, Paul Fletcher, Doug Collins, Leighton James. Sub not used: Billy Ingham.

QUEENS PARK RANGERS: Phil Parkes, Dave Clement, Tony Hazell, Terry Venables, Ian Evans, Frank McLintock, Dave Thomas, Gerry Francis, Mick Leach, Stan Bowles, Don Givens. Sub: Martyn Busby (not used).

REFEREE: Mr C. Thomas (TREOCHY).

ATTENDANCE: 41,018.

Despite the defeat we were still second in the table although we were now ahead of Derby on goal average only. We'd fallen a further point behind Leeds who had beaten Liverpool 1-0 at Elland Road with a goal from Mick Jones.

QPR were the highest scorers on the day, hitting four in a 4-2 win at Wolves with Stan Bowles scoring two of them.

Down at the bottom of the league, there was a first win of the season for West Ham who won 1-0 at Coventry courtesy of a John McDowell goal. It had moved them above Birmingham and the pair had now been joined by Wolves in the bottom three.

All the week's results are below followed by our league goalscorers, the league's leading scorers and the league table.

First Division Results

Saturday 20th October 1973

ARSENAL 1 IPSWICH TOWN 1
COVENTRY CITY 0 WEST HAM UNITED 1
DERBY COUNTY 2 LEICESTER CITY 1
EVERTON 1 BURNLEY 0
LEEDS UNITED 1 LIVERPOOL 0
MANCHESTER UNITED 1 BIRMINGHAM CITY 0
NEWCASTLE UNITED 2 CHELSEA 0
NORWICH CITY  1 TOTTENHAM HOTSPUR 1
SHEFFIELD UNITED 1 MANCHESTER CITY 2
SOUTHAMPTON 3 STOKE CITY 0
WOLVERHAMPTON WANDERERS 2 QUEENS PARK RANGERS 4

Burnley's Goalscorers (League Only)

3: FRANK CASPER, DOUG COLLINS, MARTIN DOBSON, PAUL FLETCHER, GEOFF NULTY

2: RAY HANKIN, LEIGHTON JAMES, GEOFF NULTY, COLIN WALDRON

First Division Leading Goalscorers

8:
MALCOLM MacDONALD (NEWCASTLE UNITED)

7:
DEREK DOUGAN (WOLVERHAMPTON WANDERERS)

6:
MICK CHANNON (SOUTHAMPTON)
ROGER DAVIES (DERBY COUNTY)
KEVIN HECTOR (DERBY COUNTY)
DAVID JOHNSON (IPSWICH TOWN)
MICK JONES (LEEDS UNITED)
PETER LORIMER (LEEDS UNITED)

5:
TOMMY BALDWIN (CHELSEA)
BILLY BREMNER (LEEDS UNITED)
MARTIN CHIVERS (TOTTENHAM HOTSPUR)
JIM McCALLIOG (WOLVERHAMPTON WANDERERS)
ALAN WOODWARD (SHEFFIELD UNITED)

4:
STAN BOWLES (QUEENS PARK RANGERS)
ALLAN CLARKE (LEEDS UNITED)
ALAN GREEN (COVENTRY CITY)
BRYAN HAMILTON (IPSWICH TOWN)
JOE HARPER (EVERTON)
GEOFF HURST (STOKE CITY)
RAY KENNEDY (ARSENAL)
DENIS LAW (MANCHESTER CITY)
MARTIN PETERS (TOTTENHAM HOTSPUR)
BRYAN ROBSON (WEST HAM UNITED)
BOBBY STOKES (SOUTHAMPTON)
KEITH WELLER (LEICESTER CITY)
FRANK WORTHINGTON (LEICESTER CITY)

The League Table

Team pld w d l f a pts
 
LEEDS UNITED 12 9 3 0 24 7 21
BURNLEY 12 7 3 2 21 12 17
DERBY COUNTY 13 7 3 3 18 11 17
EVERTON 12 6 4 2 14 9 16
NEWCASTLE UNITED 12 6 3 3 20 13 15
COVENTRY CITY 13 6 3 4 14 10 15
LIVERPOOL 12 5 3 4 12 11 13
LEICESTER CITY 12 3 7 2 14 13 13
SOUTHAMPTON 12 5 3 4 17 17 13
MANCHESTER CITY 12 5 3 4 15 15 13
IPSWICH TOWN 12 4 5 3 19 20 13
QUEENS PARK RANGERS 12 3 6 3 19 18 12
SHEFFIELD UNITED 12 5 2 5 15 15 12
ARSENAL 12 5 2 5 14 15 12
TOTTENHAM HOTSPUR 12 4 3 5 14 16 11
MANCHESTER UNITED 12 4 2 6 10 13 10
CHELSEA 12 3 2 7 16 19 8
STOKE CITY 12 1 6 5 11 16 8
WOLVERHAMPTON WANDERERS 12 3 2 7 15 23 8
NORWICH CITY 12 1 6 5 10 17 8
WEST HAM UNITED 12 1 4 7 11 19 6
BIRMINGHAM CITY 12 1 3 8 10 24 5