How long was kenny burns at barnsley. My friend is trying to work out what his first football match was. He isn't a barnsley fan but he came along with me. All he can remember is that there had been a player of month or year given out to someone else and someone shouted out to kenny burns. "I voted for thi kenny' and kenny responded with a thumbs up. Any ideas on this vague description of which match it could be. 85/86 season I think.
He was only here for the 85-86 season. I don't remember us ever handing out player of the month awards, if we did, it wasn't something the fans voted on, so it must have been player of the year. We always presented the player of the year award at the last home game of the season, which was a 4-2 loss to Crystal Palace on 26th April 86.
Was it Kenny Burns who got sent off within 30 seconds of coming on as a sub . I seem to remember someone coming on as a sub , running straight along the half way line two footing someone and jogging straight back off
Cheers Jay. i was thinking the same but I didn't think Kenny was there at the end of the season. Is there a way to find out if he was there or on the bench for that game?
I will have a look when I get home through the programmes for that year unless someone answers you before. There definitely was a short lived player of the month competition. I remember Larry May and Paul Futcher dominating it.
Team line-ups before the mid 90s are few and far between on the web. As it was the last home game of the season, programmes won't help either, although it's possible the first programme from the 86-87 season will have details. Someone with a Rothmans from that year will be able to help and I think the Barnsley Official History has details of all games in.
Burns came on as sub for Campbell in the Palace match, which was his last match for us. Then he went to play in Sweden for Elfsborg. I couldn't stand Kenny Burns. i'm not sure whether he got sent off playing for us, but he certainly got sent off the last time he played against us at Oakwell, when we beat Derby 5-1,
Ha ha old Kenny can remember him coming on as sub v Wimbledon and a young David Hirst had to be the one to be subbed as he was getting a good kicking. Enter the beast! They came with that rough tough crazy gang image but within seconds he took out their troublesome centre half thigh high!! Then committed a load of other x rated atrocities, cant remember him being sent off but he certainly left his mark.............literally. Think we lost 2-0 but it was a great watch!! I hope im right the images aint as clear as they used to be but that's my recollection of him
Gordon Owen and Ian Walsh. That was the season that those two and Hirst pretty much got all the goals between them. Only seven players scored for us that season, 8 if you include Willie Donachie's match winning own goal for us at home to Oldham.
I should have said, we think we have it bad now but there were only 3,862 at that Palace game and then over the summer we sold our three leading scorers in Walsh, Hirst and Owen and started the next season pretty much without a striker. We had Rodger Wylde, who had just spent a year off being treated for cancer, and I think we were persisting with the idea that Steve Agnew was a striker, although he had barely played over the past two seasons. So we started the next season, funnily enough at home to Palace (4,629 there this time) with a 17 year old Carl Bradshaw making his debut alongside Winnie Campbell up front. To be fair to Bradshaw he scored after 30 seconds or so. But it was a false dawn, as we were drawing 1-1 and down to 10 men within a few minutes. We then, unsurprisingly went 5 games without scoring, whilst losing our first 6 games of the season. We brought Ian Chandler, Darren Foreman and Willie Ferry (possibly the worst player we've ever had) in, and they managed 2 goals between them before Christmas, but we also picked up John MacDonald in November, who added a bit of class up front. Fortunately, Stuart Gray was banging them in from midfield and then, just as we thought we were doomed, up popped glory boy Rodger Wylde to score the goals that kept us up, comfortably in the end. We didn't top 10,000 for a home game that season, and this includes games against Spurs (9,979), Dirty Leeds (6,483), Sheffield United (7,613) and Sunderland (5,535), which is incredible, considering the latter three claim to bring 5,000 every time they play us! In fact, our cup replay on a damp February night against Aldershot saw a bigger crowd than for any home league game (9,784). But that's when the Cup was more important than the league!
My Kenny Burns story ........... and I always think of it when people talk about the Hume / Morgan incident. Kenny was playing in a reserve match (Central League) for us, pretty sure it was v West Brom. He wasn't up for it .... didn't fancy a kick around on a cold evening. After ten mins of facing a nippy young striker he'd had enough, so he turned to the other Reds centre back and said "fook this for a game of soldiers". Next challenge was a Burns elbow into lads head, knocking him cold. The rest of his night was easier for Kenny. The other centre back considered it part of his apprenticeship.
