Seventies players to take centre stage

This evening there is a 70s dinner at the club for the Jimmy McIlroy testimonial that's been arranged by the club's chief executive Paul Fletcher and will see a number of his former team mates joining supporters for a Lancashire evening.

Those players started arriving yesterday for the game, with Fletcher's former room mate Dave Thomas arriving in the afternoon.

Fletcher will be joined by a number of his former team mates from the promotion winning team of 1973. Besides Thomas, who signed for QPR during that season, there will be regulars from that team in Mick Docherty, captain Martin Dobson, Geoff Nulty, Frank Casper and Leighton James.

All of those players, other than Thomas, were in the Burnley side that murdered Pompey 4-0 at the Turf back in that 1972/73 season. Frank Casper scored twice with Nulty and Fletcher getting the other two. We were 4-0 up ten minutes before half time and Casper had missed a penalty.

Also with them at half time will be five other players from the 1970s in Brian Flynn, Steven Kindon, Ian Brennan, Eddie Cliff and Ray Hankin.