Don't blame me for Stanley's demise

Ferguson, then just 17, turned down a move to Workington for £3,500 and some people have said his departure would have stopped Stanley having to hand in their letter of resignation from the Football League in March 1962 with debts of £40,000.

But he doesn't think he should carry this burden.

"It was a stigma that has always stayed with me but I was just a young lad. Unlike clubs like Bury nowadays, we didn't know about the finances. We just went out and played.

"All the directors were 'sir' to us and in fact the only one I got close to was Charlie Kilby, the granddad of Burnley Chairman Barry. But we didn't know about the finances of the club.

"I heard Workington had come in for me and I went into the dressing room as a 17-year-old and asked my team-mates, who were mostly Scotsmen, if I should go. They said if I didn't want to I didn't have to and they would support me and I shouldn't worry about it. So I didn't go.

"The next day Bradford came in for me and offered five players just for me but Accrington wanted the money.

"I don't think it's fair to blame me or Bob Lord, the then Burnley Chairman," said Ferguson with Lord sometimes held responsible as he told Stanley their position was hopeless at a creditors meeting on March 5.

"It is rubbish to blame us. The club had gone too far for anyone to help them. It was the people running the club. I was only on £7 a week and the top players were on £10. The wage bill wasn't huge but yet there were debts of £65,000. It had built up over time.

"If I had gone to Workington it might have kept them going for three or four months longer but who knows?"

Ferguson described what that day was like on March 6 1962 when Stanley handed in a letter of resignation to the Football League.

"It just came like a bolt out of the blue," continued Ferguson. "Chris Lloyd from the PFA came down - the PFA were not as wealthy as they are nowadays - and said that was it.

"At the time it didn't really hit me. I was a young lad just starting out in my career but when I look back I remember that a lot of the players were Scotsmen who had families to support.

"It was sad as I haven't seen many of them since. I saw Alex Smith as he went on to play for Bolton but, you know, we have never ever talked about it. I don't know why but we just never have.

"We just got on with out lives. It is only when I look back on anniversaries such as this that I realise what it actually meant."

Ferguson, a Burnley lad, had joined Stanley as a raw 16-year-old.

"I was at Plymouth and Accrington came to play a game. I think they won 4-2 and my duty as a 'groudstaff lad' was to clean the away team dressing room. The Stanley staff heard my accent and asked where I was from and I said Burnley and they said if I came back to the north to drop in.

"So in the summer and I did, I joined Stanley in June. I told Plymouth and they said 'you can't do that' and I said 'I just have'. There were no contracts then or anything like that and that was it."

And his debut in the old Third Division was a memory.

"I got a chance because Lawson Bennett, a fellow from Darwen who played in the outside right position, was 'done' by a player called Hunt from Gillingham.

"Lawson was one of those players that loads of clubs were chasing but he damaged his ligaments and that was that. He didn't come back, you didn't in those days.

"So, in my first game as a professional footballer, I was on the coach to Gillingham and I was going to mark this headbanger Hunt. Luckily it went okay and I never looked back."

He says his first introduction to professional football was on the coach down to Kent with trainer Harry Hubbick.

"We stopped off at a transport cafe and Harry turned to me and said 'Mike can I have a word' so I said 'yes' and he said 'don't have peas with your pie'! I've never understood what that was about to this day but that was my introduction to professional football!"

Ferguson stayed at Stanley until the club resigned from the league and then he took himself down to Gawthorpe to train with Burnley.

"I was only allowed to train with the reserves then as Burnley's first team were in the FA Cup final and were in Europe. You weren't allowed to train with them.

"But it was great for me as I was Burnley through and through, even though I went on to play at Blackburn.

"Bill Smith, a former coach at Accrington, told Blackburn manager Jack Marshall to get in touch even though a number of other clubs including Manchester United and Preston were chasing me.

"Jack walked down the road to Gawthorpe and I got in his car and signed up. That was how it was done! There was no speculation as there is today."

And Ferguson remains the only player to be transferred by the Football League. "They held by registration and I cost £750 which went, not to Accrington, but to the FA."

Despite being from Burnley, his experience at Rovers was second to none.

"I got the chance to play with Ronnie Clayton, who had just stopped captaining England, Bryan Douglas who was on the edge of the squad and Andy McEvoy, who was in front of Jimmy Greaves as leading scorer. It was fantastic. Burnley and Tottenham were the two big teams but Blackburn wasn't far behind."

Aston Villa, QPR, Cambridge, Rochdale and a trip Iceland followed before he moved into the coaching side and was manager at Rochdale before a spell in Sweden. He was a scout for Tottenham and England, when they were managed by his friend Terry Venables, and now still lives in Burnley.

But he still looks on his days with Stanley with fondness - and believes they can get back in the League.

"If one man can do it, current Chairman Eric Whalley can. They are just two seasons off the Football League. It is as simple as that and he just needs the backing.

"Accrington were dead and buried and various people have taken up the reigns since but I think Eric is the one that has put them on the map and if anyone can, Eric can."