| Now with Notts County, former Burnley and Stoke striker Ade Akinbiyi will be the special guest when the two sides meet in the Premier League at Turf Moor tonight. |
It's less than a year since Ade left us to sign for Houston Dynamo, having made his last appearance in the heartbreaking Carling Cup semi-final against Spurs. We reached that semi-final partly because of Ade's last goal for the Clarets when he netted that equaliser against Chelsea at Stamford Bridge.
He had two spells with the Clarets, the first of which started in 2005 when we signed him from Stoke City, making his debut on 4th March against Sunderland, a debut that didn't last too long.
Popular with the fans at Stoke, that was certainly very much the case at Burnley and no more so than in the first half of the 2005/06 season when he was the league's leading goalscorer and scored that remarkable hat trick at Luton.
He was sold in January of that season, less than a year after signing for us. Sheffield United made a bid we couldn't refuse and Ade, despite not wanting to leave, joined their promotion chasing squad.
A year later he was back, but in all fairness he never quite hit the heights that he'd achieved in his first spell. There were still some top performances though with the goal at Chelsea and his performance alongside Andrew Cole at QPR standing out.
The Burnley crowd loved him and that will ensure, without any doubt at all, that he'll get a fantastic reception when he steps back out onto the Turf Moor pitch again tonight. I suspect the welcome from the visiting fans will be just as warm. |
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