We cracked on – and look where it took us

Last updated : 16 August 2004 By Tony Scholes
Bury manager Stan Ternent - brought in to replace Chris Waddle in 1998
It was June 1998, Turf Moor was never going to be the same again. Chris Waddle had gone, never to be seen in football management again, and the board had turned to Bury manager and former player Stan Ternent to try and restore some pride at Burnley.

Immediately after the press conference he did an impromptu question and answer session with some fans and one of those fans stood and asked, “Will you play the same sort of football as you played at Bury?”.

Somewhat indignantly the new man sharply replied, “And what was that?” He then promised a high fitness level, endeavour and a will to win. He told one of the television reporters that his first ambition was to win the first game and when pushed to go further he said his next was to win the second game.

If we thought it was going to be different then we never bargained for the post match press conference after the third league game when he suddenly told the waiting throng that four players, all of who had been involved that day, would never play for the club again. And they didn’t.

Not as though things went well although there were some good days. We got a draw in our first game at Manchester City for nearly a quarter of a century and we hit Colchester for four down at Layer Road.

But we conceded four at Preston and Fulham, five at Bournemouth and even lost an FA Cup tie 3-2 against Darlington despite leading 2-0 going into the last ten minutes. Things were not looking good. “It’s not my team,” he cried after the Fulham defeat although five of the starting eleven were Ternent signings.

We went into Christmas just above the drop zone but there had been a significant arrival at Turf Moor in the lead up to the festive season. This was no blind man on a galloping horse but a new director who was set to take over as Chairman – Barry Kilby.

Stan had been able to bring in Paul Crichton after the cup defeat and all of a sudden it was like a shopping centre as new players came in. By the time we went to Bristol Rovers in the second week of the New Year Ally Pickering, Steve Davis, Graham Branch and Micky Mellon had all been added to the squad whilst Lenny Johnrose followed shortly afterwards.

Things hardly improved and we were still teetering on the brink in early March after two astonishing home games that saw us lose 5-0 and 6-0 to Gillingham and Manchester City respectively.

“Stan’s going, he’s been sacked,” was the news around town and nobody was at all surprised. We’ll never know what was said, how close he might have come to losing his job. But whatever was said and whatever actions were taken that week it turned the club around and kicked off a three year period that saw is in fantasy land.

Paul Cook - major signing in March 1999
He made two more signings immediately. Tom Cowan arrived from Huddersfield and he was joined by the player I consider to be Stan’s best ever signing for Burnley and that was Stockport midfielder Paul Cook.

We lost to Preston in the next game, but didn’t deserve to, but then went on a run of eleven games unbeaten and survived for at least one more season in Division Two.

It was only one more season but we weren’t going to leave by the back door this time. It was a fantastic season, we picked up a record points total for the club, made some more excellent signings, and even went to a Premiership club, Derby County, and knocked them out of the FA Cup.

There were so many highlights – that cup win, the wonderful day at Scunthorpe on the day we clinched promotion and the odd top signing along the way. I don’t think any of us can still grasp what happened in February 2000 when the town was shaken with the news that we were signing Ian Wright.

I’ve said Paul Cook was his best signing, but this had to be the most dramatic, the most stunning transfer ever. It was just as dramatic as the Jimmy McIlroy departure and it created queues at the Turf Moor ticket office from the minute the news broke.

After the win at Scunthorpe an emotional Burnley manager looked at the fans on the pitch and told a television reporter, “It means so much to them and it means a lot to me as well”.

Promotions always bring with them two emotions, the elation of going up which sometime later is followed by the worries of whether the team will be good enough to survive. We really needn’t have worried at all.

Wrighty was gone, we got the news from Jerry Springer, and after a failed attempt to lure third rate actor Vinnie Jones we made the sort of start we could never have dared hope for.

Only a poor run of form either side of Christmas kept us out of a play off position but you would not have heard a complaint from any Burnley fans after a finishing seventh in a season when we hoped to survive.

That poor run saw us lose five on the trot. Stan accused the players of having too much plum duff after the Boxlng Day defeat at Barnsley and immediately altered history by cancelling Christmas.

The season overall went so much better than any of us had dared hope, it is not often that a Burnley side exceeds expectations in one season never mind two successive seasons.

A relaxed Stan with Burnley top of the league
We kicked off the following season without a solitary new signing in the starting line up but we got off to a good start with a 2-0 win at Hillsborough against Sheffield Wednesday. It was played on a Sunday evening to accommodate the new ITV Sport channel but so few were tuning into this venture that it hardly had an effect on Thora Hird’s viewing figures for Songs of Praise.

Alan Moore was on the bench but was in the side at Millwall the following week as we won again. He and Glen Little were tearing sides apart and we won seven of the first eight league games.

On a Sunday in September a stunning 3-2 win at Bradford City saw us go top of the league and I can still vividly see Stan with that confident swagger making his way down the touchline at the end.

There were some fantastic performances – there were six consecutive wins in November and December including a 2-0 victory at Coventry, just down from the Premiership, when we totally outplayed them from start to finish. Away days were brilliant and besides those already mentioned who can forget the performances at Birmingham and Preston as the points came rolling in.

Stan always liked to get to 50 points for safety and we did it before Christmas and tucked into the turkey clear at the top of the league.

A big defeat against Manchester City in March 1999 had been the turning point and on the last Saturday of 2001 we went to Maine Road and came home with another pasting from them, this time 5-1. It proved to be another turning point.

Incredibly, and despite still being top of the league, we somehow failed to make even the play offs albeit on goal difference. The home form deserted us and we won just three of the ten remaining games at Turf Moor that season.

Robbie Blake, Marlon Beresford, David Johnson and Paul Gascoigne all came in but we couldn’t arrest the slide that saw us collect just another 25 points.

Stan got more and more agitated. He blamed the pitch after the home draw with Norwich. “Pele couldn’t pass on that surface,” he said whilst the home defeat against Birmingham was met with, “None of my players were better than mediocre”.

“The pitch didn’t suit him today,” he said after Gascoigne’s awful performance at Sheffield United and then a week later turned on referee Barry Knight after Wolves won at the Turf. “We have got amateur people running a professional sport,” he cried.

Celebrating with David Johnson after Johnno scores against Preston
His outbursts that day cost him a touchline ban in the following season but I am sure any Burnley fan who had got near Knight that day would have behaved far worse than that, I certainly would have.

Life at Burnley FC changed after that season, those who were naïve enough to think that ITV Digital could ever survive had a shock when they realised the money promised wasn’t coming.

We lost some players, couldn’t sign any replacements and started the 2002/03 season with four defeats. After the fourth of those defeats, 3-0 at Reading, I made a plea to the club to get things sorted.

Stan agreed with me and this was the night when the famous blind man arrived on his galloping horse. He claimed it was as bad as the day at Fulham when they weren’t his players and said, “I am going to have to have a chat with the chairman and see where we go from here. Tonight I was embarrassed to be their gaffer because that performance is a reflection on me”.

We won six and drew four of the next ten games and it took runaway leaders Portsmouth to end the unbeaten run. During the run we won at Leicester, picked up a point at Ipswich. Everyone was getting confident again but we weren’t to have another run anything like it again.

“You can’t have to score seven to win a football game,” he said after an astonishing game at Grimsby that saw us lose 6-5. “I’m lost for words, the defending was shambolic,” he added and also claimed that Arthur was removed for tactical reasons and that any injury must be between the ears”.

We’d certainly thrown one in and that was to become a feature as goals were conceded at an alarming rate. Before the season had ended Reading had scored five against us, Rotherham got six whilst Watford and already relegated Sheffield Wednesday both scored seven and these were all on the Turf.

There was no relegation battle though and two superb cup runs gave the season a feel good factor. We went out of the League Cup to Manchester United at a packed Turf Moor having seen off Spurs but the FA Cup knock out at Watford still hurts on a day when we just didn’t perform.

At the cup defeat at Watford
Stan called the fans fantastic and said we would use the last thirteen games to try and get into the play offs but it did not work out and we lost ten of them.

Andrew Watson was trying to sell his season tickets as the defeats mounted up and ultimately this failure saw him move on.

For Stan, summer 2003 was crucial. A long list of players left the club and there was no doubt that some good players had to be found to fill the gaps.

Disappointingly we started the season with few of the gaps filled, not particularly good signings, and a central defensive pairing of Branch and Gnohere.

It proved to be a difficult season, lifted occasionally by an influx of loan signings, but for most of the time it was apparent that we might have a fight on our hands to stay up.

“We’re close to being excellent and close to being rubbish,” Stan said after we had won through the first round of the League (now Carling) Cup.

After three loan signings arrived at the beginning of September we turned in a superb performance at Stoke. It was our third win on the run but Stan brought all our feet back onto the ground as he told us, “One swallow doesn’t make a summer”.

But there were more heavy defeats as the new look defence was hardly doing any better than the previous season. “It was kindergarten stuff and I won’t be grinning and bearing it,” he said after Ipswich hit us for six, but nothing compared to the after match reaction after the 5-3 defeat at Deepdale.

There were suggestions of a resignation amidst the chaos at the end but he finally surfaced to tell us, “I’m absolutely naffed off because we were miles the better side,” and pointed the finger in the direction of his goalkeeper Brian Jensen. To be fair there were some defenders who must have been mightily relieved to hear the Beast getting the blame.

There’s no doubt that any manager will be more agitated when things aren’t going well and he is pressured into speaking to the media but he gave us a classic after a 0-0 draw at Palace. “It us unlike us not to score, and it is unlike us not to concede,” he announced at the final whistle.

He brought in some more loan players, he fell out with a couple of referees including an amazing set to with Graham Laws on the pitch which cost him a fine and another touchline ban. But all along he kept telling us we would survive.

Having a word with the assistant after Fuller won a penalty on the Turf
We did, an achievement he then said was the eighth wonder of the world, and on the day we did it despite a 3-0 defeat at Rotherham he branded some of his players a disgrace.

Three days later the bombshell hit the town, Stan Ternent’s contract would not be renewed and he was to leave after the Sunderland game. Love him or loathe him, can you really be indifferent about Stan, I think everyone wanted him to go out with a win against the team he had supported as a boy.

It didn’t happen but what a reception at the end. Just about no one left, and I include the Mackems in that, as he received an ovation that was just incredible as he bowed out after six years.

There is no doubt that they have not been a quiet six years, and whichever way you look at it we are still playing a division higher than we were when he arrived and inherited a squad that included the likes of Neil Moore, Lee Howey and Michael Williams.

He’s not always the easiest to deal with and I, with Clarets Mad, have certainly had my run ins with him. I was accused of scuppering a transfer deal, of writing crap (he probably got that one right on occasions) and a number of other things.

That’s how he is and I’ve also been on the end of the other Stan Ternent and been able to sit and talk football with him.

He’s currently painting a brown shed green on Kath’s orders but tomorrow he’ll be taking a break from that and making a Turf Moor return for his testimonial against Manchester United.

It will be a special night for Stan, not the emotional scenes of the Sunderland game but a night for him to enjoy in the company of a lot of his footballing friends. These will include a host of ex-Clarets as well as managers from other clubs many of whom have often thanked Stan for his help.

Scunthorpe - May 2000
The Ternent years at Burnley were six in all and I am sure none of us will ever forget them, he made sure they were always eventful.

The highlight just had to be the day at Scunthorpe but winning at Derby in the FA Cup as a Division Two club, leading the First Division during the autumn of 2001 and those cup runs during the 2002/03 season weren’t too far behind.

Stan Ternent did my head in at times but I,m sure many others can say the same. But then again he gave me those moments that every football fan dreams of, the things we all so desperately want for Burnley.

Enjoy your night tomorrow at your testimonial Stan, hope it is a great success for you – and then I’m sure you’ll understand that we then need to crack on with Steve Cotterill and see where that takes us.

There's one thing for sure, even with no money and just eight players he was given more to start with than you were six years earlier.