PUBLISHED APRIL 2023

Out of the Wilderness: A Director's Life at Burnley FC

£19.99

Turf Moor Tales
The Secret History of Burnley's Rise

In the bitter cold of a Lancashire winter, the boardroom at Turf Moor felt particularly draughty that evening. It was 1985, and Burnley Football Club was teetering on the brink. The old Fourth Division had become our new reality, a far cry from the glory days when we were champions of England. As company secretary, I had the unenviable task of delivering the financial reports that evening, and the figures were grim.
John Jackson, our chairman at the time, sat with his head in his hands. The heating had been turned down to save money—just another small indignity in a season full of them. We were losing a significant amount of money, and the threat of non-league football was a constant concern. Someone needed to ask the difficult questions, and as usual, that someone was me. "We can't continue like this," I said, pushing my glasses up my nose. "The ground's crumbling, attendance is down to barely two thousand, and we're losing money hand over fist." The other directors shifted uncomfortably in their seats. In the distance, you could hear the muffled sounds of training under the floodlights, with Manager John Bond putting the lads through their paces.
The club I had grown up supporting, the one I'd watched from the Cricket Field Stand as a boy, was in desperate circumstances. But that evening also marked a turning point. Burnley FC had indeed reached its lowest point. We made decisions that night that would help lay the groundwork for the club's eventual resurrection.
Looking back now, from the vantage point of Premier League status and multi-million-pound television deals, it seems almost unthinkable. But those dark days shaped everything that followed. They instilled in us the significance of exercising caution, the necessity of posing challenging questions, and most importantly, the resilience of maintaining faith in the face of adversity.
ROYAL MAIL TRACKED 48
Published: April 17, 2023
Price: £19.99
Hardback in DJ: 352 pages
ISBN-10: 1801503850
ISBN-13: 978-1801503853
Dimensions: 152 x 228 (mm)

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