Two special guests for tonight's derby

Last updated : 27 October 2006 By Tony Scholes

One of the two is Dave Thomas who was, and still is, the youngest player ever to play for Burnley at the top level of English football. He made his debut in the last game of the 1966/67 season against Everton, a club he was later to join, at the age of 16 years and 220 days. That was just 46 days older than the club record, set by Tommy Lawton in a Second Division game.

He was one of the stars of the 1967/68 season FA Youth Cup winning team and the following season won himself a regular place in the first team following the sale of Willie Morgan to Manchester United.

Thomas played on the wing, and he was as good a crosser of a ball as I've ever seen at Burnley, it was hardly a surprise that during his time at Everton their centre forward Bob Latchford was the league's leading scorer, Thomas had made it easy for him with that crossing ability.

It was a change of manager at Burnley that appeared to change things for Thomas, there were always rumours of a rift between him and Jimmy Adamson who started to play him in a midfield role. He was more than capable of playing that role but he was suddenly sold to close rivals at the time QPR during our promotion season of 1972/73 and it was there he returned to playing as a winger.

He was finally, and surely belatedly, selected to play for England after Don Revie took over as manager of the national side. Revie had described him as the finest young talent in Europe some six years earlier and over the next thirteen months Thomas won eight caps for his country.

He was in the QPR side that had the title snatched from them by Liverpool right at the end of the 75/76 season and a year later he moved on to Everton where he had a superb run for two years. We never saw the best of Thomas at Burnley, he was only just past his 22^nd birthday when we sold him.

Alongside Dave tonight will be a player from the 1960s who was as popular as any player at the club. There's not much of him, he was listed at 5ft 7ins, but Brian O'Neil was one fantastic talent who went on to play over 280 games for the club before being sold to Southampton in the summer of 1970.

I've said it before, but I really believe the sale of O'Neil was a crucial one, I cannot believe we would have been relegated a year later had we had him in our side.

He came into the team at right half, replacing Jimmy Adamson who had been a fixture in the side for many years. He was nothing like the graceful Adamson in style, but was a little pocket dynamo who was all action, was a good tackler and passer, packed a superb shot and was more than capable of looking after himself.

The Turf Moor crowd simply loved him and you'll be hard pushed to find a Burnley supporter of the time who can even begin to explain how on earth he wasn't capped by his country. It's not just the supporters, his former Turf Moor team mates are equally perplexed.

Those of us of that era love to see him back at Turf Moor, and tonight will be no different. I just wish I had a pound for each time I've heard someone say that we've never replaced O'Neil. But how do you replace a talent like that?

Welcome back to two great Clarets.

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