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Mr. Elwood though will tell you that he is fully qualified to run a football club because of his long career as a player. He played for a long time for Hallam FC in one of the local leagues around Sheffield.
To be fair to them they have done remarkably well in the last few years. For so long a struggling club they won a place in the First Division in 1997 and have now survived into their fifth season at this level. David Jones won them promotion but left immediately to be replaced by Gary Megson. He was sacked after two years of relative success to be replaced by Andy Kilner who himself was sacked recently as they remained rooted to the bottom of the league.
Kilner, an ex-Claret, has been replaced by Carlton Palmer who has already upset some players with Kuqi very outspoken.
I'm going to be somewhat kind to Andy Kilner here, he does happen to be a friend of mine, and after looking in grave danger of going down last season they won five out of the last five matches to finish in 19th place and relative safety. They achieved this despite having to continually sell players and during last season they saw Tony Dinning (Wolves), Ian Moore (Burnley) and Kevin Cooper (Wimbledon) all go to bring in much needed finance. That makes Kilner's work look all the better.
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On the day before the season started Kilner brought in West Brom's Jason van Blerk on a free transfer and just a few weeks into the season West Brom colleague Richard Sneekes also came in on a free. Ian Lawson was allowed to go to Bury to make room for Sneekes.
Kilner also made use of the loan market and in the first two months of the season secure one month loan deals for Pegguy Arphexad (Liverpool), Lee Sandford (Sheffield United) and Tim Flowers (Leicester).
Palmer replaced Kilner on 6th November and already there has been further transfer activity. Sneekes was released but transfer fees have now been paid for Sheffield Wednesday's Aaron Lescott who cost £75,000 and for Kevin Ellison of Leicester for £55,000. Leicester's Damien Delaney and Gary McSheffrey of Coventry are currently at Edgeley Park on loan.
They currently sit bottom of the First Division with just 12 points from 23 games and are already 9 points from the safe position, 3rd from bottom. It is not too difficult to see why. Apart from only having won two games all season they have an horrendous home record with just one win and one draw from twelve games. The only home win came in Carlton Palmer's first home game in charge against Norwich City who they beat 2-1 whilst the only other home point came in a 3-3 draw against Grimsby during Kilner's time in charge.
That means 1 win, 5 draws and 5 defeats away from home. Half of the teams in the division have lost more away games than Stockport including second placed Manchester City and two sides currently in the play off positions, Norwich City and Crystal Palace. The Clarets have only lost one less.
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They have scored just 22 league goals with Glynn Hurst and Scott Taylor having scored four each and Shefki Kuqi three. Their last game was at home last Saturday, a 2-1 defeat to Wimbledon, and they lined up: Lee Jones, Petri Helin, Mike Flynn, Colin Woodthorpe, Aaron Lescott, Aaron Wilbraham (Scott Taylor 72), Shefki Kuqi, Kevin Ellison, Ali Gibb, Leo Roget Carlton Palmer (Damien Delaney 84). Subs not used: Sam Turner, Glynn Hurst, Andrew Welsh.
There will certainly be players involved against their former club on Saturday. Ian Moore, the Clarets record signing, arrived from Stockport in November last year. He played against them at Edgeley Park last season but this will be his first game at home against them. Graham Branch, now back in the squad, is another who joined Burnley from Stockport. He was transferred in December 1998 and he played and scored against them last season.
Paul Cook is the third current Claret to have signed from Stockport, initially on loan, in March 1999 but he won't be taking part on Saturday, he is still on loan to Wigan Athletic.
Former Stockport boss Andy Kilner played for both clubs. He started his career with the Clarets, joining from school in the summer of 1983 but was released by Tommy Cavanagh at the end of the 1985/86 season after just five first team games. Over four years later he resurfaced at Stockport for a short time and played a major part in their promotion from the 4th Division.
We paid Stockport around £80,000 for Tony Hancock in the summer of 1989. He was a disaster and was shipped off to Preston after just a few months at Turf Moor. He never played for Preston and that was the end of his league career.
Another striker to arrive from Stockport who had little, if any, success at Turf Moor was Ian Helliwell. He was Jimmy Mullen's last signing and played just three games for us.
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Price sadly died in tragic circumstances in 1995 at the age of 51 after a long and debilitating illness. I know he is still very fondly remembered by many Stockport fans.
Games between the two clubs were virtually non existent until the 1980s and the regular fixture got under way with an emphatic 5-1 Freight Rover Trophy win at the Turf in January 1985. The Clarets goals that night came from Wayne Biggins(2), Micky Phelan, Tommy Hutchison and Peter Devine.
In the 1990/91 season we won a Turf Moor cracker 3-2 with goals from Ron Futcher, Roger Eli and John Deary. Chris Pearce was the hero that day though for kicking out at some offensive Stockport player although it did win the dancing goalkeeper a red card.
In 1995/96 we beat them 4-3 in what was in the end a very significant result. The three points we won were the last points picked up under the management of Jimmy Mullen who was sacked four defeats later. It was a game that could have gone either way with John Francis hitting the winner in stunning style at the Cricket Field End. The other three came from Chris Vinnicombe, Andy Cooke and Kurt Nogan. Ian Helliwell scored his last league goal for Stockport in that game.
The season after and they went home with their tails between their legs after a 5-2 thrashing. The Burnley goals that day were scored by Barnes, Barnes, Barnes, Barnes and Barnes. They were Paul Barnes' first goals for the Clarets and he became the first Burnley player to score five in a game since Andy Lochhead over 30 years earlier.
League results in the last 20 years
Season | Div | Ven | Result | Att | Scorers |
1985/86 | 4 | h | 0-1 | 3,909 | |
a | 1-1 | 3,472 | Heesom | ||
1986/87 | 4 | h | 2-0 | 2,410 | Regis Matthewson(og) |
a | 1-0 | 2,500 | Hoskin | ||
1987/88 | 4 | h | 1-1 | 6,642 | Davis |
a | 0-2 | 4,423 | |||
1988/89 | 4 | h | 1-0 | 6,942 | Britton |
a | 0-0 | 6,676 | |||
1989/90 | 4 | h | 0-0 | 6,537 | |
a | 1-3 | 5,210 | White | ||
1990/91 | 4 | h | 3-2 | 8,946 | Futcher Eli Deary |
a | 2-2 | 3,523 | Futcher(2 1pen) | ||
1992/93 | 2 | h | 1-1 | 11,229 | Conroy |
a | 1-2 | 4,953 | Heath | ||
1993/94 | 2 | h | 1-1 | 13,130 | McMinn |
a | 1-2 | 5,122 | Francis | ||
1995/96 | 2 | h | 4-3 | 9,113 | Vinnicombe Cooke Nogan Francis |
a | 0-0 | 8,463 | |||
1996/97 | 2 | h | 5-2 | 10,332 | Barnes(5) |
a | 0-1 | 9,187 | |||
2000/01 | 1 | h | 2-1 | 16,107 | Payton Branch |
a | 0-0 | 7,087 |
Last Time in the League
Burnley 2 (Payton 20 Branch 25) Stockport County 1 (Tod 56) – Nationwide League Division 1, Saturday 14th October 2000
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It had looked all week that Burnley might sign the Stockport forward but in the end they didn't, he played for Stockport and at the end of the game Stan Ternent said the deal was completely dead and he would now definitely not become a Burnley player. Stan also said that he thought he was rubbish in the game anyway.
We had been struggling a bit at home and in the last four home games had come from behind to earn a draw but not in this one. We turned in our best home football all season in the first half and led 2-0 at the interval with goals from Andy Payton and his striker partner Graham Branch. It could have been many more as we simply tore Stockport apart.
By half time though we had lost both Glen Little and Andy Payton to hamstring problems and they were replaced by Paul Weller and, making his debut, Paul Robinson who had come in on loan from Wimbledon. Robinson got 45 minutes which was the longest he got in a game for Burnley and he failed to impress.
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In the last quarter of an hour we discovered our first half form but couldn't convert a number of half chances and in the end settled for a 2-1 win and only our second home win of the season although it was the start of a run of six successive home wins.
Ian Cox won the man of the match but there were also excellent performances from Kevin Ball, Micky Mellon and Graham Branch.
The teams were,
Burnley: Nik Michopoulos, Mitchell Thomas, Steve Davis, Ian Cox, Lee Briscoe, Glen Little (Paul Weller 18), Micky Mellon, Kevin Ball, Paul Cook (Ronnie Jepson 63), Andy Payton (Paul Robinson 45), Graham Branch. Subs not used: Paul Crichton, John Mullin.
Stockport County: Carlo Nash, Peter Clark, Sean Connelly, Mike Flynn, Kevin Cooper (Grant Brebner 45), Leyton Maxwell (Ian Lawson 45), Jarkko Wiss, David Smith, Ian Moore. Aaron Wilbraham (Shane Nicholson 85), Andy Tod. Subs not used: Lee Jones, Robert Clare.
