Willie Irvine’s book Together Again gives a very clear picture of the life of an apprentice at BFC in the early sixties. His account of life in their lodgings, being constantly hungry, and some of them three or even four to a freezing room, with trips in the pouring rain to an outside toilet, is almost Dickensian. Not all lodgings were like that; Dave Thomas speaks glowingly of the Edmundsons where he stayed.
It would be unthinkable now that apprentices would be used to clean out the stadium toilets, some of them at Turf Moor in Irvine’s day little better than farmyard middens, and emptied out with a shovel. In Irvine’s day it was football training interspersed with the drudgery of stadium cleaning work, painting barriers, cutting the grass, cleaning the boots of other players. And Dave Thomas remembers cleaning and shining not just boots but players’ shoes. In truth it was almost feudal. But it was the norm and it was accepted as such, a sort of football equivalent of National Service. You worked your way through the A, B and C teams, doing a whole range of menial tasks, then the reserves and finally, if good enough, the first team. And during all of this there was no college work or writing up logs of your week’s activities. This is not to suggest that apprentices in those distant days weren’t happy as Larry. Dave Thomas has a hundred fond memories and loved every minute. They had fun, of that there is no doubt.
It might seem that today’s young apprentices are pampered, have a far easier life, and when I suggested that to Vince Overson he immediately rejected it. “Certainly not, we work them hard and there’s no way they are pampered. They learn discipline just like we used to do, but they learn it differently. They might not empty out the toilets but it’s still 5 quick push ups for bad language. I smiled at that. Some years ago I went to watch a youth team game versus Bradford City at their Apperley Bridge training ground only a few miles from where I live in West Leeds. Not one foul word emerged from any Burnley player, whilst that from the Bradford lads was appalling; so much so that one spectator remonstrated with one of them when he uttered something crude by the touchline. Burnley won by the way.
“If there is a big way that things are different, it’s socially. Attitudes, expectations are far different, young people are different, but discipline still remains very important.”
Kyle Lafferty is one of three youth team members who have very recently reached the required first team ability level, the others being Chris McCann and Richard Chaplow, the latter eventually sold for a large fee. Lafferty pays tribute to Terry Pashley, certainly no shrinking violet, exhorting his players from the touchline or in training, when dishing out the verbals.
“Terry Pashley rightly gets a lot of the credit because he did so much for me in that first year. I always thought he was giving me a hard time, but he said it was because he knew my potential. He kept on having a go at me and I got stronger.”
Whilst Lafferty, McCann and Chaplow are beneficiaries of the ‘new-style’ apprenticeship, bearing in mind however that ‘giving them a hard time’ hasn’t vanished entirely from the curriculum, at this point it seems reasonable to say that so many older players, like Vince Overson and Dave Thomas, will say “well it never did me any harm” about the old-style apprenticeships.
Dave Thomas joined Burnley in the mid sixties and was in the same lodgings for six years. Stan Ternent was in the same lodgings before him. As an apprentice his day started between 8.30 and 9.00pm when everyone met at Turf Moor to be transported to Gawthorpe for morning training. At lunchtime it was back to Turf Moor by coach where they made their own lunch arrangements. Dave nipped up the hill to his lodgings. The afternoon was spent back at Turf Moor where it was either coaching from Jimmy Adamson, “he spent a tremendous amount of time with us,” or Joe Brown and doing jobs around the ground. At least by then they had ended the practice of apprentices cleaning out the appalling supporters’ toilets. The job they all hated was pitch repairing on a Monday after a Saturday game, the boredom of replacing all the divots one by one. Not to be relished in the pouring rain or the freezing cold. The other jobs were painting barriers and turnstiles, cleaning dressing rooms and staff and player toilets, and sweeping the terraces. All these today are contracted out. Nobody minded kit preparation. It was their job to get it all down to the laundry although the club did employ two ladies to do the actual washing and ironing. With up to fifty players of all ages, the piles of kit were substantial. Boot cleaning in the boot room was another job that had to be done 100% right, cleaning, checking studs, polishing, checking laces. Every job they did was checked by people like George Bray. If it was not done properly, it was done again with a flea in your ear.
From Thursday, it was prepare for the Saturday game, but if there was a midweek game the routine changed, more pitch repairs on a Wednesday morning and a double dose of terrace sweeping. Another Thursday job was to prepare the baskets and skips of kit ready for an away game. Willie Irvine remembers accompanying the skips down to London on a Friday and the next day in the dressing room learning he was to make his debut.
Dave saw a copy of the timetable that today’s young players follow. What struck him was the length of the day and the total hours they put in. There was no college work in his day though he did do a voluntary evening class in bookkeeping and accountancy. Just occasionally, if the jobs were done, and had been done well, Bray would let them home early. In that respect things were reasonably loose and flexible. Some weeks you would never quite know what you’d be doing in the afternoons until you got there. Today, the timetable for the young lads is mapped out quite rigidly.
“But we had fun. Put a load of young lads together and let them loose and you’re bound to have a few laughs. Of course we tried to skive a few times; there are always duckers and divers. What young lads don’t? And we were always playing pranks. The apprentices always changed somewhere down near the laundry room. So there was the day we did the old classic bucket of water balancing on the just-open-door routine. Sometimes if we were painting we’d have paint fights, but this day we were having water fights and someone thought of the bucket idea.” (By now Dave was chortling with laughter). “Trouble is, it was Jack Butterfield who came in, the bucket landed on him, and there he was, stood there dripping wet with the bucket over his head; and a bundle of ruined letters for Bob Lord in his hand. It was Mick Docherty who got the blame. ‘Course we were all killing ourselves.
“Then there was the day someone nailed Keith Newton’s shoes to the floor under the wooden bench in the changing rooms at Gawthorpe. Keith wore drainpipe trousers and winklepicker shoes in those days. To this day no one knows who nailed them down, and it was classic. Keith, lovely bloke, bent down to pull his shoes from under the bench and they were stuck, wouldn’t budge, there they were with two bloody great nails through the toes. ‘Hey my shoes are stuck’, he said; then saw the nails. He went ballistic.”
Dave clearly has wonderful memories of his days as an apprentice. Not everyone made the grade though. A lad called Dave Coolley who shared his digs didn’t. For these lads it was desperately hard to accept they wouldn’t make it, and more often than not they had nothing to fall back on. Some knew; others were devastated. Today, the training system is geared to making sure the lads have at least some college courses to cushion the impact of any disappointment.
Today the hunt is on to find lads good enough to become apprentices at Burnley. The academy at Pendle Forest might well be a source of talent now that links have been established with the Burnley youth department. In the past, very few young players from the Pendle area have ever signed pro forms at Burnley. Burnley FC will work side by side with Pendle Forest. This is the first time that the club has formed real links with any junior football club. Pendle Forest is an FA Chartered Standard Community Club, one of only 13 in the Lancashire area.
It was in the 2006 SKY Sports programme featuring the links between Burnley and Irish club Glentoran over the years that revealed something else that few Burnley fans are aware of. Since 2002, Newbridge AFC in N Ireland has been a nursery club for the Clarets. Mention that Kyle Lafferty is a product of the Newbridge club and its importance will be instantly recognised. Current youth team goalkeeper Jonathan Sergeant is also from Newbridge.
Lafferty is from Kesh and was brought to Belfast to play for a Newbridge representative side for a number of weekends. This side travelled to Burnley to take part in a trial match so that the club could look at any players that interested them.
Raymond Laverty is the Burnley rep over in N Ireland. “When Kyle came to us he had a raw talent and hopefully we’ve played a part in his development. Having a player like him coming through the ranks means a lot to the kids playing now. If they see him doing well they know it is a realistic target for them too. Newbridge teams travel every year to Burnley so they can keep tabs on the kids and it also gives the kids a chance to get to know Burnley and the people associated with them. This then make sit easier for anyone of they were lucky enough to get a contract at Burnley.”
The Newbridge set-up like Pendle Forest is impressive. Both have qualified coaches and both have the aim of creating opportunities for young lads to develop their skills and reach whatever potential they have as footballers. The fact that firm links exist is good news. Another player or two from each of these clubs would be even better news.
