Times We Struggled to Find 11 Players

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Rowls
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Times We Struggled to Find 11 Players

Post by Rowls » Tue Jun 30, 2020 2:00 pm

I'm thinking of times like last night when we struggled to put out a full side.

There was the side in 2004 who beat Leeds 2-1 at Elland Road with three or four right backs playing in various positions. Two of them, Lee Roche and Richard Duffy, scored our goals.

There was our glorious first eleven in Dyche's first promotion season who, despite their brilliance, were only ever a single injury away from being short on numbers.

Any others?

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Re: Times We Struggled to Find 11 Players

Post by ClaretTony » Tue Jun 30, 2020 2:01 pm

We struggled to find any players at times for a few years in the 1980s :D
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Re: Times We Struggled to Find 11 Players

Post by UnderSeige » Tue Jun 30, 2020 2:20 pm

Rowls wrote:
Tue Jun 30, 2020 2:00 pm
I'm thinking of times like last night when we struggled to put out a full side.

There was the side in 2004 who beat Leeds 2-1 at Elland Road with three or four right backs playing in various positions. Two of them, Lee Roche and Richard Duffy, scored our goals.

There was our glorious first eleven in Dyche's first promotion season who, despite their brilliance, were only ever a single injury away from being short on numbers.

Any others?
The time when we had a severe shortage of players, to my memory, also relates to 2004. ITV digital had collapsed leaving a big hole in the club's finances. Stan Ternant's contract had not been renewed. Glen Little had been loaned to Bolton never to return. Cotterill had become manager in the close season with only eight first team players on the books if memory serves me right.

Cotterill then brought in a small number of players such as Michael Duff, Thomas and McGreal. Once the season started we were struggling to put a full squad out and had to bring in a few more players such as Elliot, Harley etc.

The other time was when Stan first joined and announced after the match that five of the players, who played in the first game, would never play for Burnley football club again.

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Re: Times We Struggled to Find 11 Players

Post by ClaretTony » Tue Jun 30, 2020 2:22 pm

UnderSeige wrote:
Tue Jun 30, 2020 2:20 pm
The time when we had a severe shortage of players, to my memory, also relates to 2004. ITV digital had collapsed leaving a big hole in the club's finances. Stan Ternant's contract had not been renewed. Glen Little had been loaned to Bolton never to return. Cotterill had become manager in the close season with only eight first team players on the books if memory serves me right.

Cotterill then brought in a small number of players such as Michael Duff, Thomas and McGreal. Once the season started we were struggling to put a full squad out and had to bring in a few more players such as Elliot, Harley etc.

The other time was when Stan first joined and announced after the match that five of the players, who played in the first game, would never play for Burnley football club again.
Little came back from Bolton, was only there a month or two. He actually scored our last goal that season before saying no to a new contract and signing for Reading.

Thomas, Elliott & Harley were all signed for Cotterill’s second season.

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Re: Times We Struggled to Find 11 Players

Post by TVC15 » Tue Jun 30, 2020 2:26 pm

Thomas was also brought in under Stan not Cotterill wasn’t he ?
It was Sinclair who Cotts brought in
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Re: Times We Struggled to Find 11 Players

Post by Rowls » Tue Jun 30, 2020 2:30 pm

I've always suspected that we signed Gifton Noel-Williams to make up the numbers. He was a supremely talented footballer who should have gone much further in his career but you didn't need a medical qualification to see that the man's knees were shot to pieces. At times he could barely walk.

Steve Cotterill also "signed" our first team coach Mark Yates by registering him as a player for emergency cover. Fortunately it never came to that but I remember him being on the bench a few times.

Then there was our very own "Ali Dia", Amadou "Count" Sanokho. Wikipedia tells me he made 4 substitute appearances for Burnley.

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Re: Times We Struggled to Find 11 Players

Post by ecc » Tue Jun 30, 2020 3:04 pm

I don't want this to turn into a Steve Cotterill debate but looking back I seriously wonder how we stayed up in his first season.

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Re: Times We Struggled to Find 11 Players

Post by Vegas Claret » Tue Jun 30, 2020 3:12 pm

ClaretTony wrote:
Tue Jun 30, 2020 2:01 pm
We struggled to find any players at times for a few years in the 1980s :D
i was just about to come on and put 1981-86 :lol:

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Re: Times We Struggled to Find 11 Players

Post by ksrclaret » Tue Jun 30, 2020 3:15 pm

Wayne Thomas was signed in the summer of 2005 by Steve Cotterill when he flew out to seal the deal to wherever Thomas was holidaying. Frank Sinclair signed a year before in the summer of 2004.

I remember the first game of the 2004/05 season at home to Sheff Utd when the only senior outfield player on the bench was Lee Roche. Think we added a couple of astute loans like James O’Connor and Gary Cahill but how we managed to finish 13th that year having also sold Blake, Moore and Chaplow mid season was an absolute miracle.

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Re: Times We Struggled to Find 11 Players

Post by Petersa » Tue Jun 30, 2020 3:16 pm

Wasn't there a time under Cotterill, about the time when 3 from 5 subs first came in, when 2 of the 5 were never going to used and sat in the stand in their civvies never getting changed? Paul Scott and Somebody O'Neil? are the names that spring to mind


PS imho I think having 9 subs on the bench is total ballcocks anyway!

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Re: Times We Struggled to Find 11 Players

Post by Rowls » Tue Jun 30, 2020 3:19 pm

ecc wrote:
Tue Jun 30, 2020 3:04 pm
I don't want this to turn into a Steve Cotterill debate but looking back I seriously wonder how we stayed up in his first season.
We had a good back four/five and we had three or four other decent players. We were difficult to beat and had the potential to beat almost anyone in the league on our day.

But yes, it was an achievement in itself keeping us up with such low numbers. We weren't ever in serious danger of relegation which is remarkable.

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Re: Times We Struggled to Find 11 Players

Post by ClaretTony » Tue Jun 30, 2020 3:19 pm

Petersa wrote:
Tue Jun 30, 2020 3:16 pm
Wasn't there a time under Cotterill, about the time when 3 from 5 subs first came in, when 2 of the 5 were never going to used and sat in the stand in their civvies never getting changed? Paul Scott and Somebody O'Neil? are the names that spring to mind


PS imho I think having 9 subs on the bench is total ballcocks anyway!
Never had subs sat in the stand - we struggled to get players for the bench - Matt O'Neill actually came on a couple of times while Paul Scott & Ryan Townsend were also involved, even coach Mark Yates who would have come on if necessary.

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Re: Times We Struggled to Find 11 Players

Post by XDS » Tue Jun 30, 2020 3:21 pm

Can remember a time when a call was made to the sponsors lounge asking somebody to send Gerry Gow (who was sat having a fag and a pint watching racing) to the home team dressing room as we didn't have a sub
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Re: Times We Struggled to Find 11 Players

Post by Rowls » Tue Jun 30, 2020 3:36 pm

XDS wrote:
Tue Jun 30, 2020 3:21 pm
Can remember a time when a call was made to the sponsors lounge asking somebody to send Gerry Gow (who was sat having a fag and a pint watching racing) to the home team dressing room as we didn't have a sub
Can anyone else verify this? :o :shock:

It's a great story. I'd love it to be true...

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Re: Times We Struggled to Find 11 Players

Post by ClaretTony » Tue Jun 30, 2020 3:46 pm

XDS wrote:
Tue Jun 30, 2020 3:21 pm
Can remember a time when a call was made to the sponsors lounge asking somebody to send Gerry Gow (who was sat having a fag and a pint watching racing) to the home team dressing room as we didn't have a sub
I believe he was at home when he got the call. Wayne Biggins had called in sick, whoever was due to go on the bench went into the team and we kicked off with no sub. Gow, who hadn't played in months, arrived around twenty minutes into the game. It was against Orient. We were 2-0 up when he arrived but lost 3-2.
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Re: Times We Struggled to Find 11 Players

Post by claretburns » Tue Jun 30, 2020 3:47 pm

XDS wrote:
Tue Jun 30, 2020 3:21 pm
Can remember a time when a call was made to the sponsors lounge asking somebody to send Gerry Gow (who was sat having a fag and a pint watching racing) to the home team dressing room as we didn't have a sub
Similar story but not involving us, but Ray Parlour in his early career at Arsenal travelled to Liverpool with the team but wasn't involved, he asked a couple of other senior players who weren't playing what to do, and they took him up to the players lounge, he was on his 5th pint was Arsenal's assistant came barging in saying George Graham was looking for him as someone got injured in the warm up and he was sub. Being made to warm up during the game the Liverpool players smelt the beer on him and were offering him chewing gums to get rid of the smell. After the game Graham pulled him up on the drinking before a game and he was fined 2 weeks wages.

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Re: Times We Struggled to Find 11 Players

Post by claretburns » Tue Jun 30, 2020 3:48 pm

About the times we struggled, when we won 3-2 at Sheff Utd in 08/09 season, didn't we have 4-5 players playing in the wrong positions due to injuries and suspensions?

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Re: Times We Struggled to Find 11 Players

Post by jdrobbo » Tue Jun 30, 2020 3:57 pm

Watford away under Steve C.

Shudder!
82D68FA6-84E1-47FE-BA15-5FE609F63676.jpeg
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Re: Times We Struggled to Find 11 Players

Post by NottsClaret » Tue Jun 30, 2020 4:03 pm

claretburns wrote:
Tue Jun 30, 2020 3:48 pm
About the times we struggled, when we won 3-2 at Sheff Utd in 08/09 season, didn't we have 4-5 players playing in the wrong positions due to injuries and suspensions?
I remember hearing the teams being read out and couldn't work out who'd be playing where until we lined up for kick off.

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Re: Times We Struggled to Find 11 Players

Post by Rowls » Tue Jun 30, 2020 4:03 pm

Karl Bermingham!

*shudder*
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Re: Times We Struggled to Find 11 Players

Post by Rowls » Tue Jun 30, 2020 4:04 pm

jdrobbo wrote:
Tue Jun 30, 2020 3:57 pm
Watford away under Steve C.

Shudder!82D68FA6-84E1-47FE-BA15-5FE609F63676.jpeg
Assume that McGreal and Thomas were actually both injured and not fit to play given that formation.

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Re: Times We Struggled to Find 11 Players

Post by claretonthecoast1882 » Tue Jun 30, 2020 4:06 pm

jdrobbo wrote:
Tue Jun 30, 2020 3:57 pm
Watford away under Steve C.

Shudder!82D68FA6-84E1-47FE-BA15-5FE609F63676.jpeg


The trusted 2-6-2 formation should have been given more time could have been a masterstroke :D

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Re: Times We Struggled to Find 11 Players

Post by huw.Y.WattfromWare » Tue Jun 30, 2020 4:06 pm

We had a scratch side out for the second leg of the Fairs Cup Q-F against Eintracht Frankfurt.
Angus, Lochhead and Irvine all injured so Les Latcham at CF and it cost us dear. A 1-2 home defeat after a 1-1 away leg.
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Re: Times We Struggled to Find 11 Players

Post by Rowls » Tue Jun 30, 2020 4:07 pm

"Kunter"

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Re: Times We Struggled to Find 11 Players

Post by IanMcL » Tue Jun 30, 2020 4:07 pm

We got MCGreal because Ipswich failed to produce the contract, they said he would be offered. So he thought he had bettwr secure a club, to protect his family.

Ring any belos?
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Re: Times We Struggled to Find 11 Players

Post by Hibsclaret » Tue Jun 30, 2020 4:07 pm

When the likes of Ian Helliwell were adorning the claret shirt we certainly did not have 11 players in the team. Describing him as a footballer should have been referred to the trading standards...

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Re: Times We Struggled to Find 11 Players

Post by ClaretTony » Tue Jun 30, 2020 4:08 pm

claretburns wrote:
Tue Jun 30, 2020 3:48 pm
About the times we struggled, when we won 3-2 at Sheff Utd in 08/09 season, didn't we have 4-5 players playing in the wrong positions due to injuries and suspensions?
Made even worse when Michael Duff pulled up in the warm up which saw Stephen Jordan move to central defence, Grezza to left back to cover him and Wade Elliott to right back. Just found the team, it was: Brian Jensen, Wade Elliott, Steven Caldwell, Stephen Jordan, Graham Alexander, Chris Eagles, Joey Gudjonsson, Kevin McDonald, Robbie Blake (Alex MacDonald 68), Martin Paterson (Ade Akinbiyi 85), Steven Thompson. Subs not used: Diego Penny, Remco van der Schaaf, Alan Mahon.

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Re: Times We Struggled to Find 11 Players

Post by Hibsclaret » Tue Jun 30, 2020 4:10 pm

Rowls wrote:
Tue Jun 30, 2020 4:07 pm
"Kunter"
We couldn’t even beat them with an open goal...

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Re: Times We Struggled to Find 11 Players

Post by matttheclaret » Tue Jun 30, 2020 4:16 pm

ClaretTony wrote:
Tue Jun 30, 2020 4:08 pm
Made even worse when Michael Duff pulled up in the warm up which saw Stephen Jordan move to central defence, Grezza to left back to cover him and Wade Elliott to right back. Just found the team, it was: Brian Jensen, Wade Elliott, Steven Caldwell, Stephen Jordan, Graham Alexander, Chris Eagles, Joey Gudjonsson, Kevin McDonald, Robbie Blake (Alex MacDonald 68), Martin Paterson (Ade Akinbiyi 85), Steven Thompson. Subs not used: Diego Penny, Remco van der Schaaf, Alan Mahon.
Eagles best game for us that day. Unplayable

That was one of the first times that season I thought we had a real chance of achieving something. That and the come from behind win at QPR less than three days after Stamford Bridge.

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Re: Times We Struggled to Find 11 Players

Post by ClaretTony » Tue Jun 30, 2020 4:18 pm

matttheclaret wrote:
Tue Jun 30, 2020 4:16 pm
Eagles best game for us that day. Unplayable

That was one of the first times that season I thought we had a real chance of achieving something. That and the come from behind win at QPR less than three days after Stamford Bridge.
Without doubt his best game for us, but we didn't see that very often unfortunately.

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Re: Times We Struggled to Find 11 Players

Post by AfloatinClaret » Tue Jun 30, 2020 4:22 pm

ClaretTony wrote:
Tue Jun 30, 2020 2:01 pm
We struggled to find any players at times for a few years in the 1980s :D
Agreed, we'd a lot of different people wearing Burnley shirts, but between 1984 &1990 I'm not sure that we had eleven 'players' in total over that whole period and people sometimes complain about the quality of football we've played under Sean Dyche. :roll:

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Re: Times We Struggled to Find 11 Players

Post by aggi » Tue Jun 30, 2020 4:24 pm

ecc wrote:
Tue Jun 30, 2020 3:04 pm
I don't want this to turn into a Steve Cotterill debate but looking back I seriously wonder how we stayed up in his first season.
From what I remember this was partly down to Cotterill. He made the choice to focus on quality over quantity, let quite a lot of players go and then brought in some others on decent wages.

We had a decent squad if you look at it, the wage bill dropped less than 10% from the previous season.

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Re: Times We Struggled to Find 11 Players

Post by ClaretTony » Tue Jun 30, 2020 4:45 pm

aggi wrote:
Tue Jun 30, 2020 4:24 pm
From what I remember this was partly down to Cotterill. He made the choice to focus on quality over quantity, let quite a lot of players go and then brought in some others on decent wages.

We had a decent squad if you look at it, the wage bill dropped less than 10% from the previous season.
He didn't let anyone go - only had eight senior players when he arrived and made five signings so we kicked off with 13.

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Re: Times We Struggled to Find 11 Players

Post by Rowls » Tue Jun 30, 2020 4:57 pm

Cotterill got the strategy right to focus on bringing in a few players of higher ability.

If we'd gone for more players but lower quality we could have been relegated.

If we'd suffered from lots of injuries it could have backfired. Fortunately it didn't and we were comfortable.

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Re: Times We Struggled to Find 11 Players

Post by Hipper » Tue Jun 30, 2020 5:34 pm

ClaretTony wrote:
Tue Jun 30, 2020 4:08 pm
Made even worse when Michael Duff pulled up in the warm up which saw Stephen Jordan move to central defence, Grezza to left back to cover him and Wade Elliott to right back. Just found the team, it was: Brian Jensen, Wade Elliott, Steven Caldwell, Stephen Jordan, Graham Alexander, Chris Eagles, Joey Gudjonsson, Kevin McDonald, Robbie Blake (Alex MacDonald 68), Martin Paterson (Ade Akinbiyi 85), Steven Thompson. Subs not used: Diego Penny, Remco van der Schaaf, Alan Mahon.
If we could afford to have the great Remco on the bench that cannot have been a weakened team!

More seriously, was Alan Mahon not fit at the time. I believe he scored the winner at QPR.

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Re: Times We Struggled to Find 11 Players

Post by XDS » Tue Jun 30, 2020 5:34 pm

Ref the Gerry Gow story, definatley true it was me that asked Gerry Gow to go to dressing room
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Re: Times We Struggled to Find 11 Players

Post by aggi » Tue Jun 30, 2020 6:02 pm

ClaretTony wrote:
Tue Jun 30, 2020 4:45 pm
He didn't let anyone go - only had eight senior players when he arrived and made five signings so we kicked off with 13.
From what I've heard that's because he didn't want the contracts to be renewed for a number of those players (which you can't blame him for in a large number of cases). The actual drop in the wage bill or number of players was pretty minimal and obviously that was out of control by the time Coyle stepped in to save us.

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Re: Times We Struggled to Find 11 Players

Post by ClaretTony » Tue Jun 30, 2020 6:45 pm

aggi wrote:
Tue Jun 30, 2020 6:02 pm
From what I've heard that's because he didn't want the contracts to be renewed for a number of those players (which you can't blame him for in a large number of cases). The actual drop in the wage bill or number of players was pretty minimal and obviously that was out of control by the time Coyle stepped in to save us.
A number of players had not been offered new deals by Stan previously. When Cotterill came in they were in the last couple of weeks. He could have signed them I suppose but instead opted to sign players like Hyde & McGreal.

But the fact remains that we had only eight senior players under contract when he arrived - Jensen, Roche, Camara, Chaplow, Grant, Branch, Blake & Moore.

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Re: Times We Struggled to Find 11 Players

Post by aggi » Tue Jun 30, 2020 9:01 pm

ClaretTony wrote:
Tue Jun 30, 2020 6:45 pm
A number of players had not been offered new deals by Stan previously. When Cotterill came in they were in the last couple of weeks. He could have signed them I suppose but instead opted to sign players like Hyde & McGreal.

But the fact remains that we had only eight senior players under contract when he arrived - Jensen, Roche, Camara, Chaplow, Grant, Branch, Blake & Moore.
It just stuck in my mind as I read an interview with Paul Weller recently where he mentioned Cotterill calling him to say his contract wasn't being renewed at that time as he wanted to clear out a lot of the old players.

I think he did well with the players that were brought in, better quality for similar money but, going back to the original comment, we weren't noticeably weaker than the season before once Cotterill brought in all his players.

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Re: Times We Struggled to Find 11 Players

Post by ecc » Tue Jun 30, 2020 9:13 pm

You're right, Rowls. We had a very solid defence. The partnership of John McGreal and Gary Cahill was excellent. Robbie kept us going up front but we only had him for half a season!

Despite all the recent "issues" we've come one hell of a long way.

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Re: Times We Struggled to Find 11 Players

Post by ClaretTony » Tue Jun 30, 2020 9:31 pm

aggi wrote:
Tue Jun 30, 2020 9:01 pm
It just stuck in my mind as I read an interview with Paul Weller recently where he mentioned Cotterill calling him to say his contract wasn't being renewed at that time as he wanted to clear out a lot of the old players.

I think he did well with the players that were brought in, better quality for similar money but, going back to the original comment, we weren't noticeably weaker than the season before once Cotterill brought in all his players.
We were considerably better than the year before.

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Re: Times We Struggled to Find 11 Players

Post by fidelcastro » Tue Jun 30, 2020 9:32 pm

ClaretTony wrote:
Tue Jun 30, 2020 9:31 pm
We were considerably better than the year before.
We certainly didn't concede as many! :D

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Re: Times We Struggled to Find 11 Players

Post by matttheclaret » Tue Jun 30, 2020 9:35 pm

fidelcastro wrote:
Tue Jun 30, 2020 9:32 pm
We certainly didn't concede as many! :D
77 conceded in 03/04. 39 in 04/05.

Incredible difference
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Re: Times We Struggled to Find 11 Players

Post by fidelcastro » Tue Jun 30, 2020 9:40 pm

matttheclaret wrote:
Tue Jun 30, 2020 9:35 pm
77 conceded in 03/04. 39 in 04/05.

Incredible difference
Incredible indeed!

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Re: Times We Struggled to Find 11 Players

Post by Wokingclaret » Tue Jun 30, 2020 11:00 pm

ClaretTony wrote:
Tue Jun 30, 2020 3:46 pm
I believe he was at home when he got the call. Wayne Biggins had called in sick, whoever was due to go on the bench went into the team and we kicked off with no sub. Gow, who hadn't played in months, arrived around twenty minutes into the game. It was against Orient. We were 2-0 up when he arrived but lost 3-2.
As he ran round from the CFS, in front of the Bob Lord, someone shouted out you've dropped your pension book Gow!

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Re: Times We Struggled to Find 11 Players

Post by ClaretTony » Tue Jun 30, 2020 11:02 pm

Wokingclaret wrote:
Tue Jun 30, 2020 11:00 pm
As he ran round from the CFS, in front of the Bob Lord, someone shouted out you've dropped your pension book Gow!
If I remember rightly he walked round carrying his boots.

On another note, there's a book coming out next year about him. I got a call a few weeks ago from the author asking me about his time at Burnley. To be fair, I didn't have too much that was positive to say about him but he was a legend at Bristol City when they got into the old first division in the late 1970s.
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Re: Times We Struggled to Find 11 Players

Post by Wokingclaret » Tue Jun 30, 2020 11:06 pm

And the London Clarets had a supporter of Gow on the trips because he played for us.

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Re: Times We Struggled to Find 11 Players

Post by Wokingclaret » Tue Jun 30, 2020 11:07 pm

"If I remember rightly he walked round carrying his boots."

Think he ran a little bit :lol:

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Re: Times We Struggled to Find 11 Players

Post by Hipper » Wed Jul 01, 2020 4:56 pm

Wokingclaret wrote:
Tue Jun 30, 2020 11:06 pm
And the London Clarets had a supporter of Gow on the trips because he played for us.
I thought he played for Rotherham's London fan's football team.

I wonder if the author of the Gerry Gow book knows of this Gerry Gow fan's existence? I can't remember his name but it's possible someone at Rotherham's London Supporters Club might.

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Re: Times We Struggled to Find 11 Players

Post by Sean Dyche's Watch » Wed Jul 01, 2020 5:40 pm

Rowls wrote:
Tue Jun 30, 2020 2:00 pm
I'm thinking of times like last night when we struggled to put out a full side.

There was the side in 2004 who beat Leeds 2-1 at Elland Road with three or four right backs playing in various positions. Two of them, Lee Roche and Richard Duffy, scored our goals.

There was our glorious first eleven in Dyche's first promotion season who, despite their brilliance, were only ever a single injury away from being short on numbers.

Any others?
There were 13 players on the squad list for the friendly against Dundee United:

https://www.uptheclarets.com/wp-content ... f-home.jpg
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