Big day for youth team
Last updated : 16 April 2005 By Tony Scholes
 | Alex Taylor - back in the squad |
|
The winners are set to play either QPR or Swindon for the Alliance Cup with those two meeting in the other area final.
There’s no doubt at all that this youth team of ours deserve to win something this year and have come so close. We would have won the Alliance League title earlier in the season but missed out because of the state of our training ground and our inability to complete our fixtures.
This has been a regular occurrence over recent seasons but it cost us this year as we ended the league two points behind the winners Tranmere with two games, against teams in the bottom part of the league, still to play.
We’ve gone out of both cup competitions in extra time. No one at the Turf back in December will ever be able to believe that we lost the game against Norwich as they scored two goals late in extra time to win it and then more recently it was another cruel extra time defeat against Oldham in the Lancashire FA Youth Cup Semi-Final.
Oldham look certain to take the Merit League now so today’s game will give this side its one last chance of some deserved silverware.
To get to this stage of the competition we have already beaten Blackpool, Darlington, Tranmere and Doncaster with all the previous rounds having been home ties at Gawthorpe.
The good news this morning, as we travel to Oldham’s Chapel Road training ground, is that striker Alex Taylor is back after recovering from injury and captain Neal Trotman, substituted last week has also been passed fit.
The likely Burnley side is:
Michael Hale, Rob Henry, Neal Trotman, Ryan Townsend, Martin Reilly, Marc Pugh, Joe Booth, Chris McCann, Tom Ince, Kyle Lafferty, Alex Taylor. Subs: Mark Crossley, Nicky Platt, Cayne Hanley. Adam Jones.