Does anyone know why Chris Waddle didn't appreciate and play Glen Little much back in the day? I always remember wondering why one of our most talented players (Little) was not being allowed to play. Interestingly, if I was to compare Little's style of play with another player it would be to Waddle (maybe not on the same level and neither really quick but both definitely deceptively skillful wingers and capable of brilliance) . Always remember a story about Glen Roeder telling big Glen that he wasn't fit to tie Waddle's shoes. Just curious if anyone can shed any light on why there seemed to be a problem? UTC

He couldn't drag him out if the bookies ..

I'm going to stick my neck out here and say that's possibly because Waddle didn't really know what he was doing.

I think post 3 has hit the nail on the head.

We bumped into Glen at the Turf just before we set off to Norn Iron for the pre-season tour ahead of Waddle's season.

Little had not been included in the squad and hadn't travelled with them - they were already over the water. He was, of course, injured at that point and couldn't have played pre-season but he cut a forlorn and lonely figure that day. He looked miserable.

It's reminiscent of the way Coyle reportedly treated injured players and in stark contrast to how Dyche treats them.

clarethead wrote:Does anyone know why Chris Waddle didn't appreciate and play Glen Little much back in the day? I always remember wondering why one of our most talented players (Little) was not being allowed to play. Interestingly, if I was to compare Little's style of play with another player it would be to Waddle (maybe not on the same level and neither really quick but both definitely deceptively skillful wingers and capable of brilliance) . Always remember a story about Glen Roeder telling big Glen that he wasn't fit to tie Waddle's shoes. Just curious if anyone can shed any light on why there seemed to be a problem? UTC

Little was a reserve team player basically when Waddle arrived, he’d hardly played in the first team under Heath. So I very much doubt that you ever wondered why he wasn’t playing.

As for the Roeder comment. Yes he said it but it has been taken out of context. He was stupid but was reacting to a couple of dicks at a Q&A night.

The one thing Waddle was guilty of was probably not using Glen earlier in the season than he did.

It was obvious that Little should have been starting - long before he forced (and that is the correct word in this context) himself into the first team.

We might have lost him had a bid come in that season.

Wasn’t it the case that the reserves won the league in the Waddle season? And that we always won when Roeder was with the England team?

Gordon Cowans managed the reserves and yes they did win the league.

Was it Waddle who insisted on playing Little on the left thus causing a chant of "Little, on the right" away at Notts County (I think)?

Goobs wrote:Was it Waddle who insisted on playing Little on the left thus causing a chant of "Little, on the right" away at Notts County (I think)?

I can only remember that under Stan in the FA Cup quarter final against Watford.

That's one thing Waddle certainly can't be blamed for.

Foulthrow wrote:Wasn’t it the case that the reserves won the league in the Waddle season? And that we always won when Roeder was with the England team?

Central League was in two divisions and we won the second division to win promotion. Roeder was missing when we got our first win of the season. He was on England duty in Italy on the night we qualified for the World Cup Finals. That was, as far as I know, the only time we won with him absent.

TheFamilyCat wrote:I'm going to stick my neck out here and say that's possibly because Waddle didn't really know what he was doing.

That made me chuckle

Rowls wrote:I can only remember that under Stan in the FA Cup quarter final against Watford.

That's one thing Waddle certainly can't be blamed for.

We didn’t play at Notts County under Waddle. Stan left Glen out on any number of occasions and he sat on the bench at Watford with Robbie Blake.

Also I remember a story (not sure of the truth of it) about a friendly away at Ebbw Vale where the players were in the dressing room before the match and Waddle and Roeder weren't there. 5 minutes before the game a note was slid under the door with the line up on it as they were both holed up in a local bar a little worse for wear.

I seem to remember waddle and cowans warming up together to the exclusion of everyone else, seemed to be a bit of a your not good enough to warm up with us, could of been at Bradford.

Rowls wrote:I can only remember that under Stan in the FA Cup quarter final against Watford.

That's one thing Waddle certainly can't be blamed for.

Probably the most underwhelmed I have ever felt leaving a game of football. That and possibly when we lost 2-0 at Fratton Park in our Premier League season under Judas.

waddle was exceptionally talented, even here with us he made it look like he having a kick about with kids playing against us when he had the ball. The gulf in class between him and opponents was startling. Unfortunately he had a bunch of duds to work with, no money in the pot as was usual, and his time was very short with Burnley. Little often looked ungainly, but at the time when he made it into the team, he was a rare talent .
I never really knew what was supposedly said by roeder..was it something about "not being fit to lace chris waddle's boots"

Fabulous player but a joke of a manager.

Friday night tactics in the Black Bull with his coaching staff no wonder Waddle has never managed again a complete joker.

Wile E Coyote wrote:waddle was exceptionally talented, even here with us he made it look like he having a kick about with kids playing against us when he had the ball. The gulf in class between him and opponents was startling. Unfortunately he had a bunch of duds to work with, no money in the pot as was usual, and his time was very short with Burnley. Little often looked ungainly, but at the time when he made it into the team, he was a rare talent .
I never really knew what was supposedly said by roeder..was it something about "not being fit to lace chris waddle's boots"

Thought he was given a fair amount of money the summer he came unfortunately he decided to spend it on the likes of Howey, Blatherwick, Williams and Ford.

In the cold light of day Chris Waddle was a far better player than Glen Little, so I've never thought his comment was too outlandish. It was a dick thing to say though about a member of the squad.

If I remember rightly, Little came off the bench at York for one of his earliest games and despite the game already being lost, played really resulting in the fans' calling for him to play but didn't feature much for a while after that.

Possibly one of the biggest mistakes waddle made was the signings he made when he first came to the club.

Players mentioned above were certainly not better than the players that we were already at the club and not in the positions that needed strengthening.

Another story I heard was about Gordon Cowans falling into a harbour, worse for wear.

Waddle should have played more games, he was well above the level. Cowans was class in his day, he hardly played either. Not sure if it was fitness or injury.

And when he did play he certainly shouldn't have played as ******* sweeper.

Waddle was my footballing hero until I realised how poor a manager he became.

The time in charge of Burnley moved Ruel Fox into lead position.

I read somewhere (possibly the new book Orient to Emirates) that it was actually Clive Holt and the board that told Waddle to pick Glen Little. Otherwise he (Little) Still May not have got in the side at all

Steve-Harpers-perm wrote:Thought he was given a fair amount of money the summer he came unfortunately he decided to spend it on the likes of Howey, Blatherwick, Williams and Ford.

Shudder! the best business he did was swopping Paul Barnes for Andy Payton, that saved us. Prior to that Creaney on loan was sound business but overall we were lucky to survive that season.

Glen himself told me that it was because he could not defend.
With regard to CT comments, Glenn played enough time's under Heath for me to wonder at the time why he wasn't playing. He eventually came on as sub against Chesterfield. It had been an awful game at 0_0 with hardly a shot on target. He came on with Paul Smith, and although it ended 0_0 the last ten minutes after his arrival, we pounded the Chesterfield goal.

I just remember dreaming of Eyres on one wing and waddle on the other. sadly they had other ideas

Wile E Coyote wrote:Unfortunately he had a bunch of duds to work with, no money in the pot as was usual, and his time was very short with Burnley.

I disagree. The season before we'd looked like play-off certainties until John Ward left as Inchy Heath's assistant. The squad was looking forward and pushing for promotion. It was not a bad squad. Had Ward stayed as Inchy's assistant I feel we'd have been a shoe-in for the play-offs.

When Waddle came in he wasn't given "millions" to spend but he was given a very generous budget which he spunked - and then some.

Mark Ford cost us £275,000
Steve Blatherwick cost £150,000
Lee Howey cost £200,000

This might not look like a lot of money but remember also that Waddle brought with him an extensive backroom team (Roeder, Cowans, Wood to name a few) who were also on big money, he wrote off ALL of the money we spent on Marco Gentile and his wages, and he also brought in Mike Williams, Mark Robertson, Kevin Henderson and Neil Moore (free transfers) who nevertheless all signed contracts and took up wages.

It busted our budget. It broke our bank. And we had banked on promotion.

Don't forget - This wasn't just a significant amount of money. Oh no. Nor was this a significant money spent on decent players; it was significant money squandered on wasters and donkeys. NONE of these players (not a single one) was any better than the players they replaced. In fact, they were all worse. To a man. They were noticeably worse and we also reneged on a deal to sign Mark Atkins (who would have been an excellent signing at that level).

To make matters worse, experienced professionals were let go: Gary Parkinson was sold to Preston for a pittance on the eve of the season. Peter Swan (who went on to play a division above us for Stan Ternent's Bury) was given away for nothing, likewise Steve Thompson (who was part of the Rotherham team who went on to spank us in the FA Cup later that season) and also long-time servant Jamie Hoyland. Then we had the indignity of having to sell star player David Eyres midway through the season to help fund the contracts of the useless, overpaid, overpriced and undisciplined excuses for players that Waddle had bought.

No surprise then that we changed from looking like a potential Championship quality side to playing like a chronically unfit pub side who were all suffering a mass collective hangover. And we played with a level of tactical ineptitude to match.

On top of ALL of this, players who had at one time been competent or at least not awful, started playing -through lack of confidence, lack of professional training and subsequent lack of fitness as if they had never kicked a ball in their lifetime. To this category add Mark Winstanley, Damien Matthew and a good few others.

I'm happy to accept when people say that Waddle might've been a nice person of whatever. Sure. Perhaps he was a nice chap and perhaps he was shy and not suited to the job.

I don't care. He shouldn't have been here. He should never have been appointed.

He was a rotten, abysmal, unprofessional and appalling manager who so nearly took us back into the basement of English football. It's genuinely scary to think about just how incompetent he was. We'd have been better off not having a manager at all, such was the scale of his mis-management.

He nearly killed us all over again, like a bad repeat from the 1980s.

He deserves all the opprobrium he gets.

Wile E Coyote wrote:Unfortunately he had a bunch of duds to work with, no money in the pot as was usual, and his time was very short with Burnley.

Or to put it another way ... he inherited a very decent squad to work with and then dismantled it into pieces of shoite, had a highly competitive budget which was better than nearly every other side in the division and his time with Burnley was necessarily cut short because he nearly killed us off in the short amount of time he had anyway.

Finally

But he did swap Barnes for Andy Payton. Fair dos on that one.

But it does NOT alter the bigger picture.

Waddle was shit.

I take it you don’t like Chris then rowls?

His record speaks for himself.

I don't want to see it re-written; merely acknowledged.

An excellent post, Rowls, which no one could argue with, if they were honest about it.

However, the most pertinent comment you make is "He should never have been appointed."
So maybe the finger of blame should be pointed elsewhere.

2nd half of the Waddle season was promotion form.
Still one of my favourite seasons

I thought opprobrium was a brass band instrument

ClaretTony wrote:Little was a reserve team player basically when Waddle arrived, he’d hardly played in the first team under Heath. So I very much doubt that you ever wondered why he wasn’t playing.

As for the Roeder comment. Yes he said it but it has been taken out of context. He was stupid but was reacting to a couple of dicks at a Q&A night.

The one thing Waddle was guilty of was probably not using Glen earlier in the season than he did.

Little did more than enough in his cameos under Heath to lead to a lot of people wondering why he wasn’t playing.

In regards to the ‘Little on the right chant’ was that not at Coventry under Stan?

Weren’t we pretty great from about February onwards that season? Coincidentally - after we got Payton and Little in the team I think.

Why did he sell Eyres?

Garnerssoap wrote:2nd half of the Waddle season was promotion form.
Still one of my favourite seasons

Our home form possibly but can’t recall many away wins.

ClaretTony wrote:We didn’t play at Notts County under Waddle. Stan left Glen out on any number of occasions and he sat on the bench at Watford with Robbie Blake.

That was utterly incredible and possibly one of the biggest disappointments ever watching Burnley away!

jedi_master wrote:Weren’t we pretty great from about February onwards that season? Coincidentally - after we got Payton and Little in the team I think.

Why did he sell Eyres?

Eyres looked completely past it at the start of that season.
Which if stories of the training under Waddle are to be believed wasn’t a surprise.
He went on to play for about another ten years after that.

There was a very crucial 1-0 win at Northampton near the end.
Remember feeling that was huge on the trip home.

Bordeauxclaret wrote:Little did more than enough in his cameos under Heath to lead to a lot of people wondering why he wasn’t playing.

In regards to the ‘Little on the right chant’ was that not at Coventry under Stan?

Won't question that people were wondering why he wasn't playing. At the event where Roeder mentioned boot laces, he'd already said that Glen was a top lad who was working hard and learning well but at times he didn't offer enough defensively. That's when these two dicks jumped in and the silly Roeder stupidly reacted. When Stan came in, he was far less polite about Glen. He used to say it was like having to play with ten men when we were out of possession with Glen on the pitch.

The chat was when Stan was manager - very definitely.

I'm definitely not trying to defend Waddle as a manager, although I do think he was improving by the end of the season. The fact that he has never managed since tells its own story but I was told a couple of years ago that he's a brilliant coach who had done some excellent work in the academy at Sheffield Wednesday. Maybe that's the role he should have always had. One of the players from that time told me that he was far too shy to be a manager. As for Roeder, I met him a few times but found him a bit strange.

I just never get the Little/Waddle story though. It wasn't that he was a first team player when Waddle arrived but he was when Waddle left. That's surely a positive we benefited from for a further six years.

jedi_master wrote:Weren’t we pretty great from about February onwards that season? Coincidentally - after we got Payton and Little in the team I think.

Why did he sell Eyres?

Payton made a hell of a difference, how can a goalscorer not make a massive difference? I always point to four successive Saturdays in March & April when we played Grimsby (h), Northampton (a), Bristol City (h) & Fulham (h). For the record, those four clubs ended the season in 3rd, 4th, 2nd & 6th respectively. We won those games 2-1, 1-0, 1-0 & 2-1. Payton got the winning goal in all four. Payts goals kept us up that season, they kept us up in the following season and then took us up in the season after that.

Why did he sell Eyres? - I think the word he needs replacing with we. From what I was told, Teasdale sold him without even consulting with him.

ClaretTony wrote:Little was a reserve team player basically when Waddle arrived, he’d hardly played in the first team under Heath. So I very much doubt that you ever wondered why he wasn’t playing.

As for the Roeder comment. Yes he said it but it has been taken out of context. He was stupid but was reacting to a couple of dicks at a Q&A night.

The one thing Waddle was guilty of was probably not using Glen earlier in the season than he did.

As the “dick” who asked the question I disagree. I think that season proved that the question was a valid one as the reason we stayed up was in no small part due to Glenn Little’s form. The board agreed and as already mentioned, Waddle was ordered to play Little.

Who knew one question could cause so much upset decades later.

Will always remember driving back from uni with a mate, along the A59 and hearing the news about us selling Eyres.

Waddle and roeder showed their complete incompetence throughout that whole season.
The summer signings that were made, the public slating of Glenn little plus who remembers waddle calling burnley fans s..t on the radio for applauding John Gayle on the turf when he came back to play with Northampton if my memory is correct.
Yes there were 2 “dicks” that season unfortunately for us they were our management team!

We will never forget you Glen.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=T4GGWz7mmng" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Was he the most unprofessional manager we've ever had?