NEVER HAD IT SO GOOD:

NEVER HAD IT SO GOOD: Burnley’s Incredible 1959-60 League Title-Winning Triumph

Extracts from the forthcoming book by Tim Quelch

Chapter 1: ‘Absolute Beginners’ the way we were before the sixties swung

...If our traditional industries were in decline by 1959, the news from the sports field was not much better. Having been given undemanding qualifying challenges, we failed to progress beyond the group stages in two out of the three World Cup competitions during the fifties, and were eliminated by Uruguay’s injury-depleted team in the 1954 finals in Switzerland.

A chastened ex-Claret and England international, Tommy Lawton, commented: ‘we forgot that the Continentals were all the time perfecting the art of the game advancing the tactics and the moves. We didn’t think that anyone had anything to teach us. We didn’t want to learn that our tactics became out-of-date.’

In 1960 Jimmy McIlroy said: ‘I wish I could interest every club in the country in FOOTBALL. I mean football, which doesn’t include ‘’getting stuck in,’’ ‘’fighting’’ or ‘’belting the ball’’...Critics bewail the lack of ball players. So do I. Yet the blame rests entirely on the people who control the teams. What chance has a boy to concentrate on skill as he avoids crunching tackles and hard robust play? Why aren’t defenders taught to win the ball in a tackle, instead of simply learning to ‘’stop’’ an opponent? I believe skill and fight are opposites – the complete footballer possesses a blend of both – but the emphasis should be very much on skill. If we are to equal the best in Continental football the tough stuff must be erased from our game, to make way for more subtlety, delicacy and softness of touch...’

Chapter 2: This Sporting Life the life of a Burnley footballer in Fifties

Jimmy Adamson wrote in 1962: ‘as soon as a youngster arrives at Turf Moor he is made to feel part of the Burnley Football Club. And, just as important, he knows he is not going to be tossed out after a short spell. Every young player arriving at Turf Moor is guaranteed four or five years on the staff. In that time he gets the chance to learn the game. He is not tossed out if he fails to live up to expectations in one season...’

John Angus said: ‘Soon after I started at Burnley I was apprenticed as a joiner. One of the Burnley directors sorted that out for me. We were all encouraged to take up a trade. It was hard going in those early years. I trained during the day and had night school in the evenings. It was particularly tough when I started doing my national service at Bank Hall Colliery. I was employed as a joiner there, too. Although the Coal Board were good about letting us have time off for football we still did almost a full day’s work with training and night school to fit in during the evenings. It was slower getting around then as well. It took around an hour to get from my digs in Brierfield to Gawthorpe on the bus. Then there was a tidy walk from the bus stop down the long drive to the training ground. There wasn’t much time to yourself.’ 

Jimmy McIlroy said: ‘...It was made clear to me that if I wanted to increase my income I would need to join one of the London clubs, where I could use the higher profile to secure advertising deals.  Dennis Compton, of Arsenal and Middlesex, was one of the first top sportsmen to cash in on this opportunity when he advertised ‘Brylcreem’. Jimmy Greaves of Chelsea advertised Bovril. But Burnley would not let me go. I wasn’t resentful, though. After all, I was getting £20 per week while local tradesmen were earning around £7...’

Jimmy Robson said: ‘...I don’t think we were ‘clannish’ (this was in response to Bobby Charlton’s remark in his autobiography). I just think we stuck together because we were such good mates – that’s natural isn’t it? Mind you, this team bond did occasionally cause us a bit of difficulty. Because we were so close we all wanted to stick with the same team. So, if one of us was injured and it wasn’t immediately obvious that it was really serious the rest would try to get him to play. That’s what happened with me in the Blackburn FA Cup replay in 1960. We’d been staying at this hotel in Blackpool beforehand. I’d got food poisoning and was sick for most of the day. I shouldn’t have played but when I got into the dressing room, the team tried to jolly me along. It seemed to work in that I did feel a bit better for a time but as soon as I was out on the pitch I knew I didn’t have the legs.’

Jimmy McIlroy said: ‘In the late fifties and early sixties, the relationship we had with the press was very different from how it is today. In those days they were primarily sports writers...They would respect confidences. From that point of view, it was better then. We may not have earned as much as modern players but we had more freedom.’

Jimmy Robson thought: ‘the medical back-up was good, too. We had quick access to a consultant surgeon at Colne Clinic if someone had a serious problem with a doctor on call, as well...Yes, things were good that way. I suppose my only reservation about our medical care was that we were propped up too often with Cortisone injections. It was the same everywhere.’

Chapter 3: The Not So Beautiful Game Football in the 1950s

Both Trevor Meredith and Brian Pilkington agreed that the standard of football pitches has improved enormously since their playing days. Brian said: ‘we were at our best in the early season games, before the winter rain. The pitches were firm and smooth. We could play our passing game better then.’ Trevor added: ‘by winter most of the pitches had become ploughed fields and once they began to dry out in the early Spring they were horribly bumpy.’

Adam Blacklaw confirmed: ‘You had to look after yourself as a goalkeeper. They’d shoulder charge you so you had to be prepared. I was a big lad about 15 stone so I always reckoned I could give as good as I got. The funny thing was that one of the worst opponents in this respect was Jimmy Greaves. He was such a gentleman off the pitch, such an amusing man, but he’d scrape you across your shins if you didn’t look out. I used to warn these fellas – ‘’any funny stuff and you’ll get more than you bargained for’’. I took smelling salts out with me along with my string gloves and flat cap. You had to be prepared.’

Brian Pilkington said: ‘Don Megson, the Sheffield Wednesday full back and father of current Bolton manager, Gary, was one chap I disliked playing against. He could be really physical. Another was John Sillett, the Chelsea right back and later manager of FA Cup winning Coventry. You didn’t get much protection in those days.’ Trevor Meredith agreed. He said: ‘You had to use your skills to evade the punishment these players dished out. If you were quick, you were mostly okay because these full backs would dive in and you could nip around them. But there were always a few who would hurt you if they caught you. Roy Hartle of Bolton, for example, would whack you down.’

Jimmy Robson added: ‘There were a lot of tough defenders in those days, who were happiest if they could engage you in a physical battle. We were a naturally fit side and we had players with real pace – Ray, John Connelly and ‘Pilky’. So we tried to pull these defenders around to create the spaces we could then exploit. We didn’t play with a target man as they do today. There was no point trying to play with your back to goal, trying to screen the ball. You’d just get one those hefty centre halves come clattering through the back of you, sending both you and the ball back as far as you’d come. There was little protection from referees. They allowed tackles from behind. No, you had to learn to lay the ball off first time before you got hit. That wasn’t easy, though. The pitches were generally poor – they were either thick with mud or, like at Easter-time, when they were often bone hard and bobbly. Either way, the ball bounced erratically giving defenders a big advantage, so you had to perfect your technique in these difficult conditions.’ 

Chapter 4: Managing To Win Management and tactics in the 1950s

Jimmy McIlroy wrote in 1960: ‘I should like to see manager Stanley Cullis aiming his sights even higher by trying to outmatch the leading Continental exponents in the pure skills of soccer. Wolves’ success does Mr Cullis great credit, but it has also done much damage to the game in general in England because so many lesser managers have attempted to ape the Wolves – Cullis technique. Artistry with the ball is not all-important with Wolverhampton Wanderers: therefore it is now treated as something of an expendable luxury by managers all over the country. These managers to their eternal shame are breeding a race of footballers who would be more at home in a wrestling stadium than on a playing field...’

Ray Pointer thought that in retrospect Burnley were perhaps over-committed to attack. He said: ‘As a team we probably pushed up too much. We conceded quite a lot of goals. Thinking about the Hamburg defeat in the European Cup, maybe we should have played more defensively, having gained that lead in the first leg. But it was probably not in our makeup. It was not really our style to go on the defensive. However, we did try to score early in our games – home and away – to try to draw other sides onto us more. If we could score early we would reinforce our defence a bit but we knew that because our forwards were quite quick, we could hit sides on the break. We relied on raiding tactics based on breakaways – usually on the wings. John Connelly and ‘Pilky’ were very fast. They could out run most full backs...’

Jimmy Robson confirmed: ‘a lot of time was given to practising dead ball routines – corners, free-kicks and throw-ins. Tuesday and Thursday afternoons were dedicated to set play practice. These innovations came in principally during Alan Brown’s time as manager when we had the smallest forward line in the country. We knew then that it was a waste of time pumping over high balls for forwards who were little more than 5’ 6’’ tall, if that. This is where the short corner came in. We used to come up with a variety of moves to fool defenders. I remember we had this corner routine where the taker would wait until Jimmy McIlroy had trotted over with a defender close behind him. Jimmy and the corner taker would then start a mock argument over how the kick should be taken. With Jimmy turning on his heels in apparent disgust, the marking defender was put momentarily off guard, expecting a long corner to follow. The corner taker would then push the ball quickly along the by-line and Jimmy would dart round the back of the defender to pick it up. We had similar routines at throw-ins, too, where we tried to throw markers off the scent.’

Chapter 5: ‘Among My Souvenirs’ a diary of Burnley’s title-winning season

Some Like It Hot was showing at the Odeon. Fittingly so, for apart from the torrential June rain, the summer had been Riviera-like. Huddled in their narrow valley on the Pennine’s western fringes, Burnley folk are accustomed to rain. Here they are directly in the Atlantic front line. So their air often comes mossy and moist and, before the Clean Air regulations, it often came sulphurous and sooty, too, particularly during the winter months. It was that characteristic moistness which helped establish their cotton industry. So when the high summer of ’59 delivered day after day of unrelenting sunshine and shimmering heat, it came as a foreign experience.

Jimmy McIlroy recalled: ‘we were still in a heat wave and the pitch was rock hard. Maurice Setters (then of West Bromwich Albion) was up against me that day. He was just up from Devon and as strong as an Ox. As I tried to get past him, early in the game, he came in at me with a clattering shoulder charge causing me to somersault and land awkwardly on the concrete-like surface. My right shoulder felt the full force of my fall. It hurt like blazes. I thought I must have broken it. What with that and a sensation of paralysis below the waist, I thought I was in a bad way. The West Bromwich centre half, Joe Kennedy, picked me up joking, ‘’ count yourself lucky. You only have to play against him twice a season. We have to play against him every day!’’ It would never be allowed today but our trainer, Billy Dougall, patched me up with a sling and on I went. Setters was unrepentant though. He kept sniping away to his colleagues: ’’break the little one arm b*****d’’.’

(Against Preston at Deepdale) Bobby Seith rang in to say he had contracted Giant Urticaria, a form of poisoning which caused his body to swell. Bob Seith remembered: ‘it was quite frightening as there was a danger that my throat would close completely’. Jean Seith added: ‘though Bob travelled with the team to Deepdale, his feet were so swollen he couldn’t get his boots on.’ Debutante Alex Elder was drafted in at left back with Cummings moving to right half to cover for Bob. Billy White deputised for the injured McIlroy at inside right.

Today, winter applied an icy grip in Burnley, too. With only the goalmouths and the field markings cleared of crumpling snow, both teams had difficulty in keeping their feet. Languishing Chelsea were determined to tilt the odds in their favour by substituting ruggedness for skill. Right back, John Sillett and midfield enforcer, Stan Crowther, were their worst offenders with poor Brian Pilkington their principal victim. With little protection coming from referee Langdale, Burnley’s left-winger took a frightful battering, limping off at the final whistle with severe bruising and swelling on his legs and ankles. Brian recalled: ‘Chelsea’s left back, Peter Sillett, was a lovely bloke but, his brother, John at right back could be nasty. We were playing Chelsea. It was right cold with snow covering the pitch. As I went by ‘Snozz’, he hit me hard on the inside of my knee, bruising the ligament. As I lay there in the snow, he hissed at me: ‘’that’s for taking the p*** at Chelsea’’.

(Regarding the 1-6 defeat at Wolves) Whilst Brian Pilkington put this wretched performance down to ‘just one of those things’, Brian Miller explained: ‘the truth was that half a dozen of us had just had injections in preparation for the New York Summer tournament we were to be in. We had painful swellings under our arms, felt really ill, and me – I woke up after the afternoon sleep drenched in sweat feeling dreadful. No wonder we lost. The fans often see you lose or hear the score and they don’t know the background to it’.

(After the Championship-winning victory at Maine Road) Margaret Potts said: ‘When little Trevor Meredith scored the winner we all just went wild. (Wolves’ manager) Stan Cullis still didn’t move a muscle in his face. Funnily enough, I thought of his abrupt words to me when Harry worked at Wolves: ‘’we don’t cater for relatives here’’. We counted down the minutes, sat and fidgeted, watched as Jimmy Mac wasted precious seconds and then minutes holding onto the ball by the corner flag. The referee kept looking at his watch but wouldn’t blow the whistle. More than just a few Wolves fans were there in their colours to cheer on City.’

Chapter 6: ‘A Taste of Honey’ Why Burnley’s title-winning triumph of 1959-60 was incredible

‘Total Football’ is the description of a style of play in which any player can take over the role of any other in the team. Its refinement, if not its genesis, is attributed to Rinus Michels, who managed Ajax and the Dutch national side during the seventies. Johan Cruyff is often considered to be the most famous exponent of the system. However, this tactical approach did not appear in the early seventies as some kind of ‘Year Zero’ enlightenment. English manager, Jack Reynolds, pioneered the idea when he managed Ajax before the Second World War. In the summer of 1960, Hungary’s famous coach, Gusztav Sebes said that his Ujpest club was experimenting with a ‘circular system’, in which every player pulled equal weight, being capable of playing in all positions. This, too, was ‘Total Football’. Indeed, the Real Madrid and Brazilian sides of the late fifties could claim that they, too, were early exponents of the system. Arguably, Burnley’s title-winning side were the first British exponents of the approach. Jimmy Adamson explained in 1962: ‘we like to keep our game fluid. We don’t believe in sticking to numbers on our backs. If the full back suddenly finds himself in the momentary role of a winger, then he gets on with it, and someone else takes over his job in the rear. Burnley play their football ‘’off the cuff’’. That best describes the Burnley style...’

(Regarding the superiority of Burnley’s scouting network) Some might argue that Wolves and Manchester United had an equally valid case here. Others might identify additional contenders, such as Chelsea, West Ham, Bolton and Sheffield Wednesday. All of these clubs successfully filled their teams with home-grown players. Arguably, the Burnley scouts had a more difficult task, though. Given that clubs then restricted their talent-spotting to Britain, the Burnley scouts had to operate within a heavily fished pool with fewer selling points, at least in comparison with many of their First Division rivals. Both Manchester United and Wolves had established formidable reputations during the fifties. Arsenal, Newcastle, Chelsea, Blackpool, Bolton, Manchester City, West Bromwich and Spurs were big names, too. They had all won silverware during this decade. Their achievements almost sold themselves. Many young lads pursued by the Burnley scouts did not know too much about Burnley, the town. Moreover, once persuaded to visit, their first impressions were not always favourable as several players recalled quite vividly. But they were persuaded they would have better chances of success there.

The Burnley scouts captured an array of glittering talent that not only sustained Burnley’s place in the top flight but enabled it to challenge for major honours up until the mid seventies. Until money was allowed to rule, a bulging harvest was repeatedly reaped from under the very noses of their opponents – most notably in the North East of England and in Scotland and Northern Ireland, too. The Burnley’s scouts were hard-working, alert, persistent and persuasive, often seeing off their rivals because their club offered a promising lad better prospects of progress. The very fact that Burnley were the ‘cheapest’ Champions of the post-war period is testament to the effectiveness of the club’s highly successful scouting network.

Chapter 7: ‘A Team of Artists and a League of Gentlemen’ Burnley’s class of 1959-60

Alex Elder commented: ‘I was fortunate as a young boy, coming into a side with so many great players - and I mean great in the proper sense of the word. We were, in those days, a great family club - the young members of the side and of the reserve side babysat for the more experienced players, looked after the kids and so on, and that's the way we were. And that's why we were called the family club. We all went out and had meals together, the wives - well, we all lived in and around the town, so they all knew one another and we all met each other during the week and socialised. They even went shopping together. So all this meant that when you were out on the park, you did your best not to let your team mates down. Obviously, this is a lot different from today, where I don't think any of the players live in the town, they've got to get out to get home, so there's not the same camaraderie, I wouldn't have thought, as there was in those days.’

Bob Seith recalled: ‘...Cliff Britton was the manager then. Although he was a Bristolian, he was utterly dedicated to Burnley. He made that clear to me at the very start of my career. One day he took me aside and asked me to accompany him to the top of the hill above Turf Moor. There, we peered down through the industrial haze upon the numerous mills and stone built terraces. With a broad sweep of his arm he impressed upon me, ‘’these are hard-working folk who graft hard for five and a half days each week. It is our duty to entertain them, to take them out of themselves for 90 minutes’’.  Although a generally dour man, Cliff Britton’s passionate conviction has stayed with me’.

It was Ray Pointer’s brilliant versatility that caught the eye of a Sunday Pictorial reporter in October 1960. He described Ray’s performance in a 4-1 League win at Blackburn thus: ‘Never on the field of football conflict have so many men been bewildered by one man. He was a ray of sunshine in this grim tangle. And he lifted a dreary local derby from the depths with a sizzling one-man show. The number nine on his back was just a decoy because if Rovers expected him to hang about waiting for service, then they were sadly mistaken. Take the way he made Burnley’s first two goals…from the right wing touchline, hammering across precision centres with the hit-me-quick look. Take the way he chased both Blackburn’s raw young full backs, Mike England and Fred Pickering, into the ground. You have got to hand it to Pointer, the man who all Burnley thinks should be lined up opposite club mate, Jimmy McIlroy, in the Belfast international. Ray didn’t stop at the full backs. He went along and teased Blackburn’s usually sure-footed backline of Clayton - Woods – McGrath into more mistakes than they are likely to make for the rest of the season. And at the end, when jittery defenders were wearing their tempers on their shirt sleeves, Ray sapped up some lethal tackles without a murmur.’

John Connelly was not just a swift, twinkling performer with an eye for goal; he was a really tough competitor, too. Bobby Charlton referred to this side of his game in his autobiography My Manchester United Years. Bobby said: ‘in those days there was a small group of talented wingers who had learned that in an increasingly physical game they could not afford just to take knocks, brush themselves down and return to the action. They had to make their presence felt as ruthlessly as they could and Connelly elected himself to this tough group of survivors which included Terry Paine of Southampton and Johnny Morrissey of Everton. In my view, though, Connelly was the best in this category. He wasn’t afraid to leave his foot in and this was never a secret; it produced instant respect in any marker. Connelly was perfectly equipped for this survival game. He was strong and quick who was happier to take on the challenge of unnerving a full back. He could beat a man well enough, but he was never inclined to stay around to admire his handiwork. If he had a chance to move on goal he was not reluctant to do so, as his scoring showed eloquently enough. His greatest contribution, however, given the finishing potential of his forward colleagues was to get to the by-line and cross accurately.’ 

Copyright: Tim Quelch & Know The Score Books

The book contains 289 pages with over 100 photographs & illustrations

Retail price: £12.99

Estimated publication date: late October 2009

Copies can be pre-ordered via Know the Score Books, Amazon, Waterstones, Borders, WH Smith & Tesco. Copies will also be later available at Burnley FC clubshop.