The Longside Reference

 

Fresh from the euphoria of winning the League, The Clarets had to face one of the hardest seasons ever, starting with a gruelling trip to the USA, Charity Shield Final, the new League cup competition, F.A.Cup, European Cup, OH! and the small matter of  defending their title. WOW was this really our Burnley, well, yes it was and an unprecedented situation for Clarets fans to be contemplating.

The trip to the USA happened in the close season, and a trip that really the Burnley board had probably wished they hadn't bothered with. They had been invited to join in the first real attempt at bringing major soccer to the USA. Drawn in a group that included;

New York, Kilmarnock, Nice, Glenavon,and Bayern Munich, Burnley eventually finished 2nd in the group behind Kilmarnock.

Bob Lord couldn't wait to get back to England after numerous press accusations of whinging and negativity by his team.

Their first encounter of the season was the Charity Shield game against cup holders Wolverhampton Wanderers, the game was played in front of a crowd of 20,000 and finished 2-2, the goal scorers were Miller and Connelly, the teams held the shield for 6 months each.

Onto the real season with the Clarets winning their first game at home to Arsenal in front of 24,553 by 3 goals to 2, scorers for Burnley were Connelly (2) and Pointer.

Burnley continued in reasonably good form and by the end of October had won 10 games and lost 5.

Their first ever League Cup encounter occurred on the 24th of October when the Clarets met Cardiff City away, a game which we won 4-0 with goals from a Harris hat trick and Connelly. We reached the semi-finals of this competition eventually losing out to Aston Villa after two drawn games and then a replay at Old Trafford.

November 16th 1960 was a milestone in Burnley History, their first ever European Cup game, it was against Reims, in front of a crowd of 36,742, Burnley won the first leg 2-0 with goals from McIlroy and Robson, then travelled to Reims losing the 2nd leg 3-2 with goals by Connelly and Robson, but going through on aggregate 4-3.

Now in the quarter final stages their next opponents were SV Hamburg and after a thrilling 3-1 win at home with goals from Pilkington (2) and Robson, the 2nd leg looked to be a formality, but true to form Burnley managed to lose the game 4-1, their only goal from Harris, thus leaving the Competition on aggregate by 5-4.

Back to the League, December the 3rd and away to Tottenham Hotspur, this game turned out to be one of those I was there games, truly a game to remember in Burnley folklore, Spurs had shot in to a 4-0 lead, goals by Norman, Jones (2) and MacKay, it was still the first half, Connelly managed to pull one back in the 38th minute, so we went in at half time 4-1 down, all over ? well no, the Clarets came back in the second half and brought a thriller of a game back level at 4-4 with goals from Robson, Pointer then a further goal and equaliser by Connelly. A truly magnificent game and one which will live long in the memory.

The League season was a real up and downer with us having quite a bit of a lean spell between January and early April, even though we managed to win all our last 3 games we did only manage to finish 4th in Division 1.

FA Cup, this was another not to be competition with the Clarets eventually losing out in the Semi Finals to the magnificently consistent Spurs side that went onto to win the Cup and also took the League title.

In summary it was a season that promised a lot, but gave us nothing, but in defence of the Clarets they had endured a long and hard season playing an astonishing 61 games in all competitions, so not a bad season at all considering.