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Massive longshot here, I've been chatting with a member on BRFCS who attended the above game, which was Burnley v An England XI. His recall is very good but we're struggling to fill in a couple of gaps ... Burnley lined up a virtually full strength, missing Alex Elder & Jimmy McIlroy who were with the Northern Ireland squad for a game against Scotland ...
Burnley - Blacklaw, Angus, Joyce, Adamson, Cummings, Miller, Connelly, Robson, Pointer, ? , Harris.
England - Macdonald, Armfield, Wilson, Clayton, Swan, Flowers, Douglas, Hunt, Lofthouse, Cheeseborough, Finney
This is what he remembers of the game .. " Both Lofthouse and Tom Finney had actually retired by then. John Connelly & Bryan Douglas had a scuffle. Connelly was vying for the right wing slot in the England team that Bryan Douglas held at the time so there was a bit of friction there. Finney was still a terrific player, he retired way too soon. After about 60 minutes all the the England forwards had scored a goal but for Cheeseborough so the other forwards tried to set him up. He must have missed about half a dozen easy chances and he still ended up without a goal. As you can imagine there was a lot of goalmouth action and MacDonald pulled off several brilliant saves, I was left wondering why he had retired. You could see he had been top class in his day. England won 6-5 in the end "
There are a couple of questions .... Bobby Seith & Bert Cheeseborough were included in the England XI. Both were ex-Clarets , but were at Dundee and Leicester City by then. It seems Seith may have dropped out injured at Right-Half and been replaced. I presume the Testimonial Committee had asked Colin, if there were any old mates he'd like to see playing, which is why they were asked to turn out.
Does anyone know who the missing Burnley player was ? Our Blackburn friend has suggested either Arthur Bellamy or Ian Towers ...