Hi Clarets

Bury fan - can I still say that? - in peace here.

In 2015 I published ‘The Forgotten Fifteen: How Bury triumphed in British football’s worst year’ which was about Martin Dobson and Frank Casper’s promotion team at Gigg in 84/85 which featured amongst others Leighton James, Winston White, Joe Jakub, Kevin Young, Terry Pashley and Wayne Entwistle. I interviewed all of them and more for the book and it’s just £1.99 on Kindle which you can read with the free Kindle app for your phone or tablet.

I’ll freely admit I didn’t know much about that side because I didn’t start watching Bury until 1988. My team of heroes was the team that Stan ‘n’ Sam built which won two successive promotions in the mid-90s. So I did a book about them too. It’s called ‘Things Can Only Get Better: Bury’s mid-90s rise under Stan Ternent’.

If you’re interested in what Lenny, Gordon Armstrong, Dean West, Ronnie Jepson and the managerial team have to say about their club before Bury, have a look at the Amazon reviews and see if you’d be interested in buying a copy. I’d hope you might be.

Cheers,
James

Have you ever seen a ghost?

Every time I go to Gigg since the expulsion. The ghosts of my memories.

Say it and say it loud and proud. They’ll always be your football club and I’m absolutely gutted that something so terrible could happen to one of our local sides. You deserved so, so much better. Don’t forget!

Stan's book "Stan The Man - A Hard Life in Football" is a great read.
The fist opening lines set the tone
And the Warnock chapter is literary genius

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Stan-Man-Hard- ... 145&sr=1-1

I saw Stan in the Brun Lea early Monday afternoon.

Monday club alive and well.

HunterST_BFC wrote: ↑

Thu Feb 20, 2020 9:47 pm

Stan's book "Stan The Man - A Hard Life in Football" is a great read.
The fist opening lines set the tone
And the Warnock chapter is literary genius

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Stan-Man-Hard- ... 145&sr=1-1

He didn’t really say much to me about Warnock, who took the job after he left to go to your lot. I however gave Big Nose enough rope to hang himself with some of his appalling quotes to the local press of the time.

jdrobbo wrote: ↑

Thu Feb 20, 2020 9:30 pm

Say it and say it loud and proud. They’ll always be your football club and I’m absolutely gutted that something so terrible could happen to one of our local sides. You deserved so, so much better. Don’t forget!

That’s a really nice thing to say. Thank you.

jamesisaburyfan wrote: ↑

Thu Feb 20, 2020 9:58 pm

He didn’t really say much to me about Warnock, who took the job after he left to go to your lot. I however gave Big Nose enough rope to hang himself with some of his appalling quotes to the local press of the time.

Exactly,
that is the beauty of the chapter in Stan's book and the way it's done.
It's very funny!

Let's just say they were not buddies

I won't add spoilers more info - Give the book a go - you will like it.

Hi James
Thx for the heads up on this, I'm always interested in a good football book, especially when it has Burnley connections and I also like Bury FC, good luck for the future.
Ps I've bought the book on kindle and look forward to reading it.
Cheers from a fellow football fan.

Cheers Durham, that’s fantastic. I actually went up to your beautiful city to interview Kevin Young. Lovely bloke.

http://theforgottenfifteen.co.uk/finding/young.html

Bury based Claret James - I was taken to a football game every Saturday afternoon as a lad (usually not Burnley in the mid 80s) I watched a fair few Bury games in the promotion season under Dobson so your first book was a great read. Quite a few memories, in particular when Blackpool trashed the place.

It's a sad state of affairs what's gone on at Bury, I know a few old timers that don't know what to do with themselves on a Saturday afternoon.

Hopefully their is a Pheonix who will eventually play at Gigg Lane.

Yeah, the Blackpool game was one of the main reasons why I wanted to do the book, to be honest. It made the front page of the Bury Times as well as the back page. £2,000 worth of damage!

I'm the same in that Saturday is no longer something to actively look forward to. At 6pm on a Saturday evening, I won't be able to tell you what I did between 3pm and 4.45pm. It's just awful, and it's not the fans' fault. It's the fault of the last two whatever-you-want-to-call-them-is-fine-by-me who have held the keys.

jamesisaburyfan wrote: ↑

Thu Feb 20, 2020 9:58 pm

He didn’t really say much to me about Warnock, who took the job after he left to go to your lot. I however gave Big Nose enough rope to hang himself with some of his appalling quotes to the local press of the time.

What did Warnock say to the press about Bury?

These are passages from my book:

Two days after the Tunisia match the position at Gigg Lane was filled when Neil Warnock was appointed, once it became clear that he wasn’t going to get the top job at Sheffield United that he’d been angling for. The fervent Blade came to Bury with Ron Reid named as his assistant and, giving the probably wholly correct impression that by now my A levels were a huge inconvenience, I missed a Computing lesson to hang around the entrance to the press conference held in the Starkies restaurant at which the duo were named. Terry Robinson saw me, recognised me from under the Main Stand and ushered me in.

From a safe position on the back row, I saw and heard the new manager start talking his new club down from the very beginning. ‘I ended up having an interview at Sheffield United on one day then another at Bury the next. I remember telling the Sheffield board how I would spend £6m on three players and then within 24 hours telling Terry Robinson how I would want three or four free transfers. It’s another world,’ he is quoted as saying in the local paper’s story about his appointment.

‘But I am delighted to be here and can’t wait to get started. If I spend £6m or £6, I will give everything I have and I think the club and the players will enjoy working with me,’ he continued in the edition of the paper that had ‘”I’LL TAKE BURY FORWARD”’ as its back page headline.

* * *

(Ahead of the League Cup third round tie at Old Trafford in October 1998 which Bury went into as a second tier side, three years after York won 3-0 there) In another instance of Neil Warnock self-promotion, the manager made a decision which irked an established professional but which gave himself some of the limelight. There was never any hint from the boss that Bury could win the tie on the back of Alex Ferguson’s legendary squad rotation in the competition: ‘Realistically, this is our Wembley. The last thing I want is for us to go all out and end up conceding six or seven goals,’ he told the Bury Times.

He also used the game to introduce another bargain basement signing. Lutel James joined from non-league Hyde United – for a wage of £200 a week as the manager took great delight in telling the press – and went straight onto the bench where he sat next to Rob Matthews. It was from there James replaced Tony Ellis to join the fray before his fellow sub.

* * *

(Ahead of the first League game against Bolton in six years) The manager had been given half a page of the Bury Times sports section every week in a feature called ‘Warnock’s World’. It acted as a collection of bizarrely mundane tales spun out as being a behind-thescenes glimpse into life as a football manager with all the accompanying ‘woe is me’ that Neil Warnock traded on while in charge at Bury. In the collection of stories printed the day before the derby, he wrote that he understood the importance of the fixture to fans while also saying that a trip to St Lucia planned for departure the day after the game was a training exercise as well as a break for the players. ‘It’s not easy to go out on a Saturday and play the way they do when we can’t even get on a training pitch sometimes,’ he wrote.



And much, much more!

Mmmmm.
Don’t really see a great deal there to cause such offence although I certainly respect your opinion and know that he wasn’t liked there.
I’ve met him several times when he was at Oldham and actually quite liked him.
I’m certain he’ll be back again next season.
Thanks for your insight and good luck with all future ventures

Thanks John. The way I saw it was that he was saying the odds were stacked against him from the start so he had a ready excuse when Bury were relegated, but that if we'd stayed up then it'd have been down to him. He also said after that Bolton game, in which we were tonked 4-0, that he had to stand and applaud one of their goals. I can't imagine a Burnley manager ever saying that about a Blackburn player's goal.

Not read the extract so this might be included. Warnock was interviewed either before or after a live Bury game wearing a Sheffield United tie which didn't go down too well.

NL Claret wrote: ↑

Fri Feb 21, 2020 2:26 pm

Not read the extract so this might be included. Warnock was interviewed either before or after a live Bury game wearing a Sheffield United tie which didn't go down too well.

I've not included that in the copied and pasted things above, but yes, you're right, he did. We drew 3-3 with the Blades on a Friday night telly game and he wore it afterwards.

The book also includes reference to the Friday telly game at Turf Moor in January 1997. Me and my mates went aged 15, and one of them was pictured to the nation smoking, a habit in which his parents didn't know he indulged. He faced some tricky questions when he got home that night.

There’s been a few downloads of The Forgotten Fifteen since I posted this. Thanks to everyone who’s given it a go.

Good luck with your book, my dad would like this so I'll mention it to him. Well done getting it written and published

Thanks Gandalf’s. Bit of a labour of love, but worth it.

jamesisaburyfan wrote: ↑

Sun Feb 23, 2020 8:39 am

There’s been a few downloads of The Forgotten Fifteen since I posted this. Thanks to everyone who’s given it a go.

The Kindle platform shows you how many pages are read each day and I can only imagine someone from here is very close to finishing The Forgotten Fifteen. I hope whoever it is has liked it.

(Why yes, this is indeed a very transparent attempt to bump the topic and perhaps sell a few more copies).

I will give it a go next week when I am posturing (keeping my head down, nose pointing to the floor) after an eye operation tomorrow morning.

Thanks levrai. With my self-critical hat on I'd say that the Stan one is better-written, but TFF probably contains more of substance for Clarets.

If like me you enjoy reading complementary things about our club and team then I recommend this book as it is almost as much a hymn of praise to "the Burnley Way" as it is a paean to Martin Dobson and his special Bury team.

James also includes a shoeing for the lashers supporters for good measure as well as mentions for John Deary and Billy O'Rourke.

Fantastic stuff, thanks Levrai.

Of the Forgotten Fifteen, I'm pretty sure Chris Grimshaw was a well thought of youth player at Burnley.

Edit. In fact he was. There's a good Geocities interview about his time here when John Bond arrived but it now seems to be infested with something naughty. I managed to read it but it brings forth pop ups warning of Windows being out of date etc. (to escape bring up Task Manager and 'End Task' your browser - mines Edge).

Grimmy really bollocksed up my entire concept with that sub appearance on 11/5/85!

jamesisaburyfan wrote: ↑

Fri Feb 21, 2020 2:32 pm

I've not included that in the copied and pasted things above, but yes, you're right, he did. We drew 3-3 with the Blades on a Friday night telly game and he wore it afterwards.

The book also includes reference to the Friday telly game at Turf Moor in January 1997. Me and my mates went aged 15, and one of them was pictured to the nation smoking, a habit in which his parents didn't know he indulged. He faced some tricky questions when he got home that night.

As you did back in the day, you got home and watched the re run of the game on sky and the camera panned onto 3 lads I knew from greenmount cricket club, hope it wasn't anyone of them. You might know James Sharples.

Anyway, I've started your book and see that Baz Warburton and Thorpy helped to contribute. I saw Phil this morning (from a distance on dog walk) and told him that I'd seen him quoted. John Dyson another top bloke.

It got me thinking, I went to Wembley on a mini bus from the Bulls Head. Previous night was in the cricket club for a Sportsmans dinner so was rough as a bear's arse on Saturday morning. Threw a Richmonds sausage butty down me neck and got on the mini bus with the intention of sleeping off the previous nights ale. Not a chance, the beer flowed all the way to London! Went back to cricket club on the way home for a night cap even though standing was difficult by then. Found out the next day that when they went to lock up they ended searching the club for me as they thought I must have passed out somewhere. Think I'd just left me pint and back doored it.

I probably know James Sharples by sight. One of the things I love about supporting a club the size of Bury is that you're on nodding terms with a thousand different people.

Thanks very much for buying it, I'm really grateful. I actually interviewed Phil for it in the Bull's Head and he really helped bring a lot of it to life. The pictures he provided me with were a godsend as much as Baz's transcribing. John Dyson was a massive help for the first book too.

Three more weeks to read these now, Clarets. Just two quid for The Forgotten Fifteen about Dobbo’s team and a fiver for Things Can Only Get Better and Francis Stanley’s. “Put together with love and dedication,” as an Amazon review from a non-Shaker said.