Big win confirms Texaco Cup semi-final place
Burnley cruised through to the semi-finals of the Texaco Cup with a five goal hammering of Hearts to record an aggregate victory of 8-0 against the Scottish club.
The front page headlines in the local press in this week were of the town’s MP flying back in after meeting delegates at a world peace conference in Moscow where he had delegates sit up and take notice when he quoted Mr Breshnev, the First Secretary of the Central Committee of the country’s communist party.
It was all about Mr Jones reminding everyone when he spoke why they were there, to talk peace, and his comments led to him making two appearances on Russian television.
Closer to home, in Burnley, came news of a job boost with a London based firm of furniture makers poised to invest in the development of a Burnley company. No names were made public but a spokesman for the London firm confirmed that they would be opening a factory in Burnley even if the deal to purchase the local firm fell through.
There were rumours abound that the National Bus Company were set to sell some of their subsidiaries including the Ribble Motor Services which operated many services in the local area to local authorities. Me George Brook, speaking on behalf of the company at a meeting in Lytham denied it. “It is a wrong impression which I feel is my duty to correct,” he said, adding: “There could be little, if any, justification for fragmentation of NBC subsidiaries to individual district councils.” Ribble, who were based in Preston, operated a number of services from Burnley that travelled out of town.
Burnley was getting a new department store with Reynard’s set to open in Adlington Street selling furniture, fashion, carpets, electrical goods, bedding and many other items. They were even offering credit to men as they gave Burnley a big improvement in retail.
If you are going to nick a car then it’s best to have some idea where you are heading with it. There were no sat navs in 1973 and I don’t think Gary Barker and Paul Parkinson, two Burnley men aged 21 and 17, had done much planning. They were seen by police and drove into a cul-de-sac. There was a third man who escaped but the two named appeared in court.
Representing Parkinson, Mr Peter Lawson said that when the car was taken, Parkinson felt ill and was sat in the back of the car taking little interest in what was going on. The illness, he had admitted, had been brought on by excessive drinking. They were both found guilty. Barker was fined £30 with Parkinson getting a £15 fine for taking the car and both were fined £15 for having no insurance.
The Texaco Cup might not have been the most prestigious of competitions but it was certainly resulting in a feast of goals and some memorable football for the Burnley fans. We’d scored ten goals in beating East Fife and added three more when we travelled to Edinburgh to play Hearts in the first leg of this quarter-final. Five more goals in the second leg took that total to eighteen.
The one disappointing message coming out of the club was the lack of people watching the games. Although we’d seen almost 22,000 at the first leg at Tynecastle, there was an attendance of just over 9,000 to witness this second leg.
This was a night of goalscoring entertainment from the Clarets with two goals in the first seventeen minutes and three in the final sixteen minutes. It all started with a swift exchange of passes between Martin Dobson and Billy Ingham which opened up the defence for Doug COLLINS to run through and place his shot wide of goalkeeper Kenny Garland.
That was on fourteen minutes and three minutes later that lead was doubled. This time a Collins shot was saved by Garland. He pushed it wide but it was picked up by Billy Rodaway who squared the ball for Geoff NULTY to bang in.
We were playing well and it looked as though there were more goals to come but we had to wait until the 74th minutes for goal number three when Leighton James went steaming down the right wing, leaving defenders in his trail. He crossed perfectly for Paul FLETCHER to head home.
Another excellent move gave Ingham the chance of a shot. Garland did well to reach it but he couldn’t hold the ball and Ray HANKIN nipped in to score from the rebound.
We wrapped it up with a fifth. Collins, with a brilliant piece of skill, beat Roy Kaye before sending over a pin point cross for HANKIN to head home his second goal.
The result won us a two legged tie with Norwich in the semi-final with the home leg to come first. The first leg was scheduled for Wednesday, 28th November but Burnley had applied to bring it forward to the Tuesday. The second leg was confirmed for Wednesday, 12th December at Carrow Road.
The teams were;
Burnley: Alan Stevenson, Geoff Nulty, Keith Newton, Martin Dobson, Colin Waldron, Billy Rodaway, Billy Ingham, Ray Hankin, Paul Fletcher, Doug Collins, Leighton James. Subs not used: Jeff Parton, Peter Noble.
Hearts: Kenny Garland, Roy Kaye, Dave Clunie, Jim Cant, Alan Anderson, Jim Jefferies, Donald Park, Donald Ford, Drew Busby, John Stevenson, Neil Murray. Subs not used: James Brown, Jim Cruikshank.
Attendance: 9,063.
Texaco Cup Second Round Second Leg Results
Tuesday 6th November
Burnley 5 Hearts 0 (8-0)
Motherwell 0 Norwich 1 (0-3)
Wednesday 7th November
Dundee United 1 Leicester 0 (2-1)
Newcastle 3 Birmingham 1 (4-2)
Semi-Final Draw
Burnley v Norwich
Dundee United v Newcastle
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