Notes
We return to the
Championship winning team of 1960 for the latest induction into the Hall of
Fame and the popular Burnley right back for many years John Angus.
Yet another north easterner to
play for the club John first arrived at the Turf as an amateur in 1954 and a
year later was signed as a professional on his 17th birthday.
It wasn’t instant fame for John though and despite his obvious talent he
struggled to even win a place in the reserve team with the quality of players
then at Turf Moor and in fact was less than a week away from his 18th
birthday before that reserve team debut came his way.
Incredibly a week after that
debut he was stepping up into the first team after the club were hit with a
number of injuries and he performed well in a 2-1 victory against Everton
giving international winger Tommy Eggleston a difficult time. For the
next two years or so he made a number of appearances in the first team but new
manager Harry Potts decided that Angus was the man for him and after
challenging Dave Smith for the position became the regular right back.
He was known as ‘Cool John
Angus’ such was his style of play and his arrival in the side was one of the
important pieces in the Championship jig saw. He was a superb defender but
that is what full backs were then, very rarely required to come forward in the
way they do now, and very rarely did a winger get the better of him.
The England selectors had not
been slow to see the potential in him either and he was capped at youth level
in 1957 and went on to win seven caps for the under 23s. The inevitable full
cap duly arrived and he and Burnley team mate Brian Miller made their England
debuts in the same game against Austria in Vienna. Angus, like
Miller, was played out of position having to play at left-back but manager
Walter Winterbottom described his performance as one of the best debuts he had
ever seen. He was never to perform that well for England again though, like
Miller he was never again capped with Blackpool’s Jimmy Armfield and then
George Cohen of Fulham always getting the nod.
Most Burnley fans at the time
will never quite believe that England won the World Cup with Cohen in at
right-back with John Angus nowhere to be seen. He was quite simply a far
better player than Cohen. John continued to shine for Burnley as the
great team was dismantled, very few wingers ever getting the better of him.
Such was his coolness that whereas most defenders were urged to clear the ball
everyone was happy to see Cool John win the ball and play it out of defence
before making yet another excellent pass. He had almost reached the age
of 30 before his place was every under threat but the emergence of Freddie
Smith saw him out of the side for spells. However he did return and with every
one of his team mates from the Championship and FA Cup Final teams long gone
he was once again the man in possession of the number two shirt.
When the Clarets were relegated
from the First Division in 1971 he faced playing football outside the top
flight for the first time in his career and was in the side for the first two
games before an injury forced him out. Initially it was thought that he
would be out for just one game but it dragged on and in fact he had played his
last game for the club and retired at the end of the season. It was the end of
an era as Burnley’s last great side had all departed or retired from the
playing side.
He had played in a total of 439
league games for the club, matched since the war only by Jimmy Mac and with
cup games totalled 521 appearances. It is difficult to imagine that this
superb and consistent of players had many bad games out of those 521.
He left the game completely on
his retirement but there was to be one last Turf Moor occasion a year later
and what a brilliant and emotional night it was. We had just clinched a
place back in the First Division and the season ended with a testimonial game
for him which attracted a crowd of over 15,000. The stars turned out in
force with a short game preceding the main game. That first game saw the youth
team take on a team of old Burnley stars with the odd guest such as former
Preston winger Tom Finney and Burnley greats like Adamson and McIlroy. The
main match was between the Burnley team of the time and a team of former
Burnley players still playing in the league. It was a great night and a
special night when we were all able to say thanks to John Angus.
Now he joins some of his former
team mates as he is inducted, and deservedly so, into the Hall of Fame. -
Clarets MAD
England
Football Online
