Burnley is defeated by a controversial late goal at Gillingham.
Burnley went seeking for their first away win of the season as they traveled to Gillingham, but a late goal cost the Clarets even a point. Burnley had drawn their previous two games at Reading and at home against Wycombe.
What could even come close to being acceptable for a father to skip his first child’s birth? In 1985, there was an announcement for a Burnley supporter to go home with the news that his wife had given birth to twins during a preseason game at Rochdale. Come on, we won 7-0; he wasn’t going to miss the game.
But it was a different story for Lucas worker Matthew Asbury who nipped down to London with his wife overdue in Burnley with their first baby. Thankfully, he made it back in time to see the birth of his son Thomas James Asbury and with a bag of cash too; he’d been to London to appear on the television programme ‘Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?’ and had won £64,000.
And he had a job to go to which was not potentially going to be the case for three hundred workers at Philips Components. They’d been left behind because of televisions manufactured cheaply in the Far East but the government was trying to secure a multi-million pound investment. MP Peter Pike, himself a former employee, warned that it was crucial that the government offered its support.
One Burnley teenager was in a bit of a mess with one doctor describing him as acutely psychotic and another reporting that there was nothing wrong with him. He landed himself in court for breaking a previous order not to go within a set distance of his parents’ house because they did not want him. He’d been found living in an outside toilet.
His defence Mark Williams told the court: “Clearly, this is a young man who is not right. He may not have a mental illness. If he hasn’t got a mental illness, he has got something that sets him apart from normal 17-year-olds. He clearly has problems and the court system can’t deal with him. There is nothing the court can do that will help him or anybody else.” The court agreed and gave him a conditional discharge. There was no indication as to where he would now live although Social Services were to get involved.
Some Burnley fans were in the money, those who don’t understand horse racing but occasionally make a bet based on the horse’s name. The winner of the opening race at Bangor that week was called ‘Up the Clarets’ and had romped home at 9/1.
James Howarth, aged 84, had collapsed in Colne Road. An ambulance was called and they brought him back from the dead. Once in hospital, Mr Howarth was able to thank them. “If it wasn’t for them, I would not be here now,” he said. The ambulance service won thanks for their prompt and outstanding service.
The injury list was growing for Stan Ternent but that didn’t prevent him allowing two players to go out on loan. Goalkeeper Tony Parks, whose only appearances for Burnley had come in the two League Cup games against Bury, joined newly promoted Conference club Barrow while Mark Winstanley became the first of the gang of four to leave. He was expected to sign for Scarborough but he turned them down and signed a loan deal with the league’s bottom club Shrewsbury. He would make his Salop debut in a 1-0 defeat at Darlington as Burnley took on Gillingham at the Priestfield Stadium.
Ternent had received a blow with news that defender Neil Moore’s knee injury was worse than believed and he would now need to immobilise it for at least six weeks. That was added to the loss of Mark Ford (broken ankle), Ronnie Jepson (Achilles) and Paul Weller (stomach strain) who were all thought to be out until after Christmas. The better news came from Steve Morgan and Paul Smith who were both improving having suffered injuries, and Gavin Ward who we’d secured on loan for a further month from Bolton. He’d also revealed that he would be making an offer for Norwegian keeper Frank Petter Kval.
Ternent was desperate for the away form to improve and said ahead of the long trip to Kent: “The away problems over the last few years are not a hang-up. They are simply down to the fact that the side has not been good enough. I don’t know why the form has been so different between home and away games but having 10,000 people shouting you on must seem like having an extra player. It’s my job to make sure that the side is good enough to do the business at home and away, and despite the fact that we’ve had to use so many youngsters, I think we’re heading in the right direction.”
The team included some of those youngsters again at Gillingham; Chris Scott and Carl Smith were both in the starting eleven and on the subs bench Matt Heywood and Colin Carr-Lawton were joined by Paul Graham who
