Amazing to think it's been so long since that emotional day,and how despite the occasional blip,the progress we've made on and off the pitch since then,i'm sure nobody could have imagined that fateful day,we'd be an established top flight team,and winning at places like Chelsea,Everton & Man Utd,beating many of the eventual PL champions that season,and the crowning moment bringing European football back to Burnley after a 50 year hiatus,plus the Barnfield complex,youth team development,attracting top coaches,such as Billy Mercer,developing seasoned England internationals,selling players for £30m,it's credit to the board,players,staff,and most importantly the Ginger Mourinho,as the abrupt turmoil in the 1980's shows,we can't take this success for granted,it's mainly been gained through hard graft,and we should relish it while we can,in football who knows where we'll be in 5-10 years,so let's make the most of our time at the top table,and embrace it.

Reading that is a bit like dropping an acid tab. Wall of text!

Since then, 33 years of almost unbroken progress. Even when we have been relegated, we got back up pretty quickly. I'd have forgotten what failure was like if the early part of the eighties hadn't indelibly printed it on my memory!

BoT - it's just a paragraph lad.

Nothing to be scared of here.

Due to illness I wasn't one of the alleged 50,000+ who were at the game but the agony and ecstasy of that day will always be imprinted on my mind. Since then...what a journey!

tiger76 wrote: ↑

Sat May 09, 2020 12:27 am

Amazing to think it's been so long since that emotional day,and how despite the occasional blip,the progress we've made on and off the pitch since then,i'm sure nobody could have imagined that fateful day,we'd be an established top flight team,and winning at places like Chelsea,Everton & Man Utd,beating many of the eventual PL champions that season,and the crowning moment bringing European football back to Burnley after a 50 year hiatus,plus the Barnfield complex,youth team development,attracting top coaches,such as Billy Mercer,developing seasoned England internationals,selling players for £30m,it's credit to the board,players,staff,and most importantly the Ginger Mourinho,as the abrupt turmoil in the 1980's shows,we can't take this success for granted,it's mainly been gained through hard graft,and we should relish it while we can,in football who knows where we'll be in 5-10 years,so let's make the most of our time at the top table,and embrace it.

thanks for the reminder. can still feel the build up to the game and all the emotion that went with it.

Suratclaret wrote: ↑

Sat May 09, 2020 4:05 am

Due to illness I wasn't one of the alleged 50,000+ who were at the game but the agony and ecstasy of that day will always be imprinted on my mind. Since then...what a journey!

Neither was I because of small stretch of water. But I'll always remember sitting in the car listening to it on the radio because I couldn't get a reception in the house and the tears in my eyes when I watched the coverage on TV later.

The outcome was fantastic but the build-up and the game itself were very "difficult on the nerves"

The worst and best day ever.
Never know such raw emotion.

I was too young to remember but that must have been an awful 90 minutes. I was thinking of the worst 90 minutes I’ve had to endure and that would probably have to be the play off final in 2010.

It was the relief and release of emotion after the game.

Remember walking past the old Sainsbury's at 6,00PM with a lady, just leaving the car park, blasting her horn and her daughter stood with her body out of the sunroof waving a loaf of bread, as if a scarf , in the air.

August 1982- May 1990 was a dreadful period in our history save for the Cup runs in 82-3 and going to Wembley in 1988. The Orient game was surreal I honestly don't remember that much of it now probably because I spent most of the game looking at my watch . I remember thinking if the 15k or so who suddenly came out of the woodwork had stuck with us more often we'd never have sunk below the 2nd tier let alone face oblivion.

Articles now on site

1. Introduction
https://www.uptheclarets.com/the-orient ... troduction

2. Dedication
https://www.uptheclarets.com/the-orient-game-dedication

3. Match Programme
https://www.uptheclarets.com/the-orient ... -programme

4. Local Press
https://www.uptheclarets.com/the-orient ... ocal-press

5. National Press
https://www.uptheclarets.com/the-orient ... onal-press

My thoughts

Hard to put into words but the most emotional day of my life, football wise. I remember walking down past the ground in the morning and seeing Gerald Sindstadt and calling him a f****** vulture who would not have been near the Turf but for this.

Everything I did that day I thought I might be doing for the last time. I went in the old Centre Spot before the game, it was packed to the rafters but absolutely silent. A friend of mine from work, a Blackpool fan, came in. He'd set off to go and see his team play at Bury but the radio stuff persuaded him that another Lancashire club needed his support that day. At the final whistle he just said: "I'm off, it's all yours now, see you Monday."

I was still on the pitch maybe an hour or two later having a pint. The crying had stopped by then. Celebrating? No, there was nothing to celebrate. Just relieved I still had my club to support.

It was just about the worst team in our history, some players not good enough, some past their best, but they helped us out that day thank goodness.

And then there were Dusty & Arthur (Miller & Bellamy). I'll never know how they coped with it all.

I’d stopped going on with my Dad by then he had a lift from Hassy and I stood with workmates. For that game I picked him up and we thought we were going to a funeral. A truly dreadful side that I didn’t give a hope for. Thankfully they got it done. May them days never return.

The loyal fans are the ones who went to the other 22 home games.and probably why the club survived

wembley94 wrote: ↑

Sat May 09, 2020 11:06 am

The loyal fans are the ones who went to the other 22 home games.and probably why the club survived

We weren't making a difference, there were so few of us.

I missed three games that season. I was stuck in London when we were at Tranmere and I missed the away games at Southend & Orient due to illness.

tiger76 wrote: ↑

Sat May 09, 2020 12:27 am

Amazing to think it's been so long since that emotional day,and how despite the occasional blip,the progress we've made on and off the pitch since then,i'm sure nobody could have imagined that fateful day,we'd be an established top flight team,and winning at places like Chelsea,Everton & Man Utd,beating many of the eventual PL champions that season,and the crowning moment bringing European football back to Burnley after a 50 year hiatus,plus the Barnfield complex,youth team development,attracting top coaches,such as Billy Mercer,developing seasoned England internationals,selling players for £30m,it's credit to the board,players,staff,and most importantly the Ginger Mourinho,as the abrupt turmoil in the 1980's shows,we can't take this success for granted,it's mainly been gained through hard graft,and we should relish it while we can,in football who knows where we'll be in 5-10 years,so let's make the most of our time at the top table,and embrace it.

Sums up things very well -we hit rock bottom to where we are now is to be appreciated and enjoyed.Although each transfer window we don’t spend 20M plus the same numpties will have a moan and tell us to stop going on about ‘that Orient game’.

Claretpants wrote: ↑

Sat May 09, 2020 11:21 am

the same numpties will have a moan and tell us to stop going on about ‘that Orient game’.

I hope they all watch it this afternoon and see just how poor we were at the time. Will only take a few minutes of the game and then you come back and appreciate just what we have now.

A moment when Burnley became one.

Remember it like yesterday. The weather was set fair and after queuing up to get off the m65 at around 1.30, and if I needed reminding, I knew it wasn't going to be any ordinary occasion. Fans were everywhere and I remember thinking it had taken this to make the majority of the Burnley public wake up. The football club was and always will be what defines the town. I can't even begin the think how I would have been had we lost. The most emotional day and game I'd ever attended. Fortune favours the brave, and we were brave that day both on the pitch and on the terrace. Thank you Brian, Neil, Ian and the rest of the warriors that day for your contribution in giving this great club of ours a future and 'oh boy' what a future its been.

https://youtu.be/EVXtmbT8R4s

This afternoon

I didnt go to the "Orient" game,i had watched my club slowly die that season,i didnt want to be at the wake,it all turned out fine but i couldnt bear anymore of that season i thought we were well and truly doomed,thankyou Ian Britton.

I lived round the corner from Neil Grewcock, and got 2 comps for the Bob Lord stand as I knew him. I gave the tickets away to my dad and prospective father-in-law, as I feared it would be my last time on T'Turf, if all the rumours of folding if we'd got relegated were true. I just had to be on the Longside. And so it transpired that there were many more afternoons and evenings on the old terrace, but none as heart stopping as that. UTC.

Not sure of the year but certainly pre 2000, I spent some time working around the Feltham area (and no I wasn't resident in the Young Offenders Institute) and used to stay in Datchet, West London. Popped out to the Evening Star one Monday evening to watch what we now call MNF and overheard a mixed group talking about "atmosphere" in football grounds.

One of the guys said he was at Uni in Manchester and took his then GF to the match, said he had never been in a ground with an atmosphere like that and both ended up in tears at the end despite having no ties with BFC or the area. Couldn't help joining in their conversation as a Claret, don't know who was more surprised, me that I'd heard their conversation and its meaning or them that I was a Burnley fan.

We need a sweep. The most passes we’ll string together in a move. I’m going for 5 and being optimistic.

I hope anyone who hasn’t seen it before isn’t expecting good football

Fantastic memories from orient game but also very scary on the day proud to be a claret always utc

ClaretTony wrote: ↑

Sat May 09, 2020 3:14 pm

I hope anyone who hasn’t seen it before isn’t expecting good football

3 goals weren't bad as i recall,specially at that level,all that mattered that day was the result,and the other games going our way,thankfully both aligned,i dread to imagine the future otherwise,bearing in mind Colne Dynamoes were an emerging force then,it was never going to be a game for the purists,we were fighting for our very existence,and they were battling for a play-off spot,could be wrong but i'm sure that was the 1st season of the play-off's,introduced along with automatic relegation to the non-league,like i say i could be wrong.

ClaretTony wrote: ↑

Sat May 09, 2020 3:14 pm

I hope anyone who hasn’t seen it before isn’t expecting good football

One paper described Grewcock's goal as "a moment of sudden, unexpected brilliance".

[sorry - should have warned about the spoiler. ]

dsr wrote: ↑

Sat May 09, 2020 3:34 pm

One paper described Grewcock's goal as "a moment of sudden, unexpected brilliance".

Our POTY that season Grewcock,mind you there wasn't exactly fierce competition was there.

Despite the result it was a horrible day. We celebrated at full time. But then the reality hit home. We almost lost our club. I had plans for a night on the town celebrating if we won. I ended up at home and was physically sick.

Never again must our club allow itself to be in the state it was 33 years ago. Up the Clarets

It’s hard to watch

Not because of what could have been or the quality of the football but because the poor picture quality and the “cuts when play stops

wilks_bfc wrote: ↑

Sat May 09, 2020 3:41 pm

It’s hard to watch

Not because of what could have been or the quality of the football but because the poor picture quality and the “cuts when play stops

Don’t think it helps changing the commentary either and having it done away from the game.

Why on earth have they got Phil Bird on commentary? His voice grates so much.

ClaretTony wrote: ↑

Sat May 09, 2020 3:49 pm

Don’t think it helps changing the commentary either and having it done away from the game.

Can’t disagree with that.
Did they redo the commentary on previous ones?

Because the outcome is “known” it’s like he’s just going through the motions.

Murger wrote: ↑

Sat May 09, 2020 3:51 pm

Why on earth have they got Phil Bird on commentary? His voice grates so much.

Just watch it on mute,that's what i'm doing,some great comments to read anyway,much more interesting than Birdy's commentary.

wilks_bfc wrote: ↑

Sat May 09, 2020 3:55 pm

Can’t disagree with that.
Did they redo the commentary on previous ones?

Because the outcome is “known” it’s like he’s just going through the motions.

They’ve kept original commentaries previously such as the Radio Lancs commentary at Chelsea. But this sounds false more so that it’s done knowing the result.

Still get kittens watching now,you keep expecting them to nick an equaliser,and they came far too close for comfort,in that last 20 minutes.

ClaretTony wrote: ↑

Sat May 09, 2020 4:04 pm

They’ve kept original commentaries previously such as the Radio Lancs commentary at Chelsea. But this sounds false more so that it’s done knowing the result.

Switched to World Service coms in the 2nd half,Peter Jones and Jimmy Armfield?

ClaretTony wrote: ↑

Sat May 09, 2020 4:04 pm

They’ve kept original commentaries previously such as the Radio Lancs commentary at Chelsea. But this sounds false more so that it’s done knowing the result.

Yes, it's not the same hearing Phil Bird's commentary.

Best bit was Brian & Arthur coming on at the end. Those two bled claret & blue.

I've been cutting onions again.

Bin Ont Turf wrote: ↑

Sat May 09, 2020 4:34 pm

I've been cutting onions again.

Me too

Watched by Billy Rod this aft. Just spoke to him he’s currently having a very large drink toasting his good friend Ian Britton.

There wasn't any TV commentary on the original, and the reason it is so bitty (I understand) is that film was expensive and lasted half an hour a reel, so they switched the camera off when the ball went out of play. It was never intended for use as proper highlights or for broadcasting in full, only for news clippings.

The best commentary IMO was for Burnley Hospital radio, by Peter somebody I believe. I still have the cassette somewhere.

dsr wrote: ↑

Sat May 09, 2020 5:34 pm

There wasn't any TV commentary on the original, and the reason it is so bitty (I understand) is that film was expensive and lasted half an hour a reel, so they switched the camera off when the ball went out of play. It was never intended for use as proper highlights or for broadcasting in full, only for news clippings.

The best commentary IMO was for Burnley Hospital radio, by Peter somebody I believe. I still have the cassette somewhere.

The best commentary by a country mile is the BBBC Radio

Steve-Harpers-perm wrote: ↑

Sat May 09, 2020 5:01 pm

Watched by Billy Rod this aft. Just spoke to him he’s currently having a very large drink toasting his good friend Ian Britton.

It was Billy Rod’s last ever league game I think. I reckon he’d have only been around 32 at the time.

Aye just missed out on a testimonial year!

I hardly slept all week. Dad and me were in different sides of the ground. Think i was home and asleep by 8pm! Missed out on the party.

Couple of weeks ago we found a vhs copy of the game in dads things. I think its a full copy of the game as its in a non descript box.