TODAY'S game at Turf Moor between Burnley and non-League side Canvey Island stirred memories of a famous day when the Clarets made the football headlines for all the wrong reasons.

Twenty seven years ago Southern League side Wimbledon was written off as no-hopes when they travelled to Turf Moor, home of the then mighty Burnley.

Alan Stevenson was the goalkeeper in that side and he admitted: "I think we were up about fourth in the first division at the time, the equivalent of the Premier League today.

"I don't remember a great deal about it other than they came up and beat us 1-0. As I recall we had about 75 per cent of the play, pounding their goal but we just couldn't score.

"Their keeper became well known, he was called Dickie Guy and was around six feet tall with a black beard. He somehow managed to stop everything.

"The longer the game went on and the score stayed at 0-0 the more frustrating it was. It was attack after attack and then suddenly they broke away and scored with about their only shot."

In the modern days of squad rotation it is not unusual for clubs to slip up by fielding an under-strength side against supposedly inferior opposition.

But in the mid-70s managers had the quaint idea of fielding their strongest side for every match and that was the case in the third round game on January 3, in front of a crowd just short of 20,000.

"There was no way we were complacent, we really wanted to win it," said Stevenson.

"It was a massive disappointment for us because the year before we had got to the semi-final of the FA Cup where we lost to Newcastle United at Hillsborough.

"But Wimbledon had a good cup-fighting tradition and that is what saw them through. I reckon if we had managed to score one we would have gone on to get three or four but it wasn't to be.

"The crowd got worried as we did not score, we pushed even further forward and that was how we managed to leave a gap at the back.

"But that is the beauty of the FA Cup, it does always seem to throw up a shock result like that. We could not even blame it on a frosty pitch or anything like that. It was just a case of over the 90 minutes we could not score."

In front of Stevenson were Newton, Thomson, Brennan, Ingham, Noble, Flynn, Hankin, Fletcher, Collins and James. Not one of them could break down the Dons stubborn resistance.

"They went on to draw 0-0 at Leeds who had a great side then and only narrowly lost the replay," said Stevenson.

Sixteen months later the Dons were elected to the Football League and a further 11 years down the line they actually won the famous trophy in most of the romantic rags to riches tales in the history of the game.

Stevenson, who made 543 appearances for the Clarets, recently returned to Turf Moor for the first time in 15 years, seeing the victory against Grimsby Town.

"I also saw them win at Coventry when I thought they played really well," he said. "It is great to see them going so well and pushing for a place in the top flight.

"It has been a long time coming, 25 years, and the club has had some really dire times. I had 12 great years at the club and it is still the first result I look for.

"The fans were really good to me when I went back for the Grimsby game, having not been there for so long you wonder if they remember you."

Stevenson now hopes that the next time he is there he will be watching Premier League football.