By Turfmanphil
October 2 2005

TMP continues his nostalgic view of his time supporting the Clarets. In this column he recollects the time he supported the Clarets up to 1977 and how life-changes would eventually lead to the 'Wilderness Years' of 1977-2004

The Wilderness Years 1977-2004

 

Part 1- The Prequel 1964-1977

 

In my first column, I gave you a flavour of my time supporting the lads on The Longside in my childhood and youth over the sixties and seventies. It’s to my shame really that I can’t remember the first ever game I attended with my dad and I never thought to ask him later in life. My father sadly died in 1999. It’s one of many questions that come to you after when it’s too late and when you wish you had asked whilst you had the chance! I think it would have been in the early 1960s sometime between 1962 and 1964 when I would have been 8-10 years old. I vaguely remember a night match being in a packed Turf Moor somewhere in the Bee Hole I think and have some recollection of John Connelly running up and down the wing but that’s about it. John Connelly left in April 1964 when he was transferred to Manchester United so those approximate dates must be about right. Rather annoyingly therefore I was too young to remember the club’s Glory Years of the early 1960s and in particular the Division 1 Championship Season in 1959-60 and the FA Cup Final year in 1962.

 

I must have been hooked after that first match because I think my dad then took me to virtually every home game after that. During a recent visit to Mum’s I made a raid up the attic and found my collection of old programmes which I used to collect avidly. From about 1967 to December 1976, I only missed a handful of home games and seem to have a complete set of home programmes for most of those seasons. So in effect for virtually 10 whole seasons I attended almost every home game at the Turf and for most of those seasons was a regular season ticket holder.

 

Going to away games in the 60s for a working class kid from a working class background was a big event and my dad was also a late developer in terms of passing his driving test and eventually being able to afford a car. Nevertheless the list of away games I attended was also impressive and I have found programmes from the following grounds involving games during the 60s and 70s:

 

Old Trafford, Maine Road, Ewood Park, Bloomfield Road, Elland Road, Hillsborough, Bramhall Lane, Anfield, Goodison Park, Ayrsome Park,Victoria Ground, Molineux, and St Andrews.

 

In 1972 aged 18, I managed to get the right number of A Levels that would allow me to go to University and hopefully embark on a scientific career in the field of Biochemistry. Hang on though; here is a lad never to have left the Rossendale Valley, a lad passionate about the Clarets. Someone who couldn’t remember the last time he had missed a home game on the Turf! What the hell was I going to do, like my father before me, I was a late developer in learning how to drive a car let alone afford one and that wouldn’t happen for many years. If I didn’t choose the correct University, I could be lumbered miles away from my beloved Turf! Most middle class kids of course choose their University on the basis of how good they are for the degree they wish to study! I chose mine on the basis or whether it was near enough to the Turf! Well OK I also chose it on the basis of being close enough to Mum so she would wash my socks now and again!

 

So in 1972, I started University Life at…wait for it….The University of Manchester, Institute of Science and Technology and for the next three years caught the Ribble Bus back to Rossendale on Friday nights every two weeks!

 

During the week I stayed in a Hall of Residence called the Northern Baptist College in Rusholme. This was a College for those going into the Baptist Ministry but they allowed a number of lay students in so no I was not religious! The College was quite close to the rough area known as Moss Side with of course Manchester City’s old Maine Road ground close by. I did see a few neutral games there over the three years but to be honest it was never the same as going to a Clarets game! Luckily staying in the College were a number of other students who avidly supported the Clarets and I was lucky enough to be taken to a number of Clarets away games typically to the Liverpool clubs and of course Old Trafford.

 

In 1975, I qualified and became a BSc and my three years of one of the most exciting times in my life came to an end and worse of all I now had to think about a career and what the hell I was going to do and where.

 

I was in luck or so I thought, during one of the summer vacations I had worked for a herbal manufacturing company in Stacksteads and in 1975 they were looking for an Assistant manager to help run their laboratory. Nothing was going to take me away from the area and my beloved Clarets, so I got the job and in so doing my first rung on the ladder within the Pharmaceutical industry. Never was one for ambition me, liked the cosy life! Still this was another 18 months, as it turned out, of being able to see my beloved Clarets every other week!

 

The job however could be depressing and it was also smelly. They used to make this awful product called Garlic and Charcoal Tablets. The managing director used to mix the ingredients in a barrel on the Moors it smelt that bad! It got everywhere, in your clothes, your eyes and worse still so did the charcoal. I sometimes looked like a rather smelly miner and I was guaranteed to be able to clear the top deck of a bus in thirty seconds flat! They once had the Gas Board up the street looking for the leak while our managing director& staff 200 yards down the road in our offices kept a low profile and whistled! After 18 months of the daily ritual of baths at 6pm, I had had enough!

 

All this though could never prepare me for the cultural shock that was about to affect forever my claim to be a true Burnley fan.

 

In January 1977, I was about to start a career with Beechams! You know Beechams that lot that make the Pills and Powders? Sadly though this wouldn’t be in St Helens, where they had their factory until the Yanks closed it many years later in the 1990s, nope not there which wouldn’t be too far from my beloved Turf.

 

This was going to be in their R&D laboratories and where were they?

 

Oh my God, Brentford, Middlesex that’s where!

 

To find out what happened over the next 28 years between the years of 1977-2005, watch out for my next columns in the series ‘The Wilderness Years’