NOSTALGIA isn't always what it used to be, but for anyone with even just a passing interest in Burnley Football Club, the club's new history video 'Rhapsody in Claret and Blue' is required viewing.
I imagine some footballing histories must be as dry as sticks.
But the Clarets have a remarkably rich heritage and this 85-minute film tells a fascinating story magnificently.
To interlopers like myself or younger supporters who have done their Turf Moor homework solely from books, this video graphically brings home the almost unbelievable status Burnley once held.
They were the Manchester United of their day just 40 years ago.
And the fact that they were then just one result away from going out of the Football League only 27 years after winning the First Division championship, makes the story even more compelling.
As one of the founders of the Football League from the industrially rich North West, it's no surprise that the Clarets were a power in the land in the early days.
Their 1914 FA Cup final triumph and record-breaking start to the championship-winning 1920/21 season are recorded in archive footage.
But it's the chequered post-Second World War history that is the most fascinating.
The crowd scenes at an unrecognisable Turf Moor seem almost surreal but are faithfully recorded by the video-makers and club historian Ray Simpson, who have trawled the archives to produce some marvellous pictures.
The rise of the team through the 1950s to their championship glory at the end of the decade is captivating viewing. Jimmy McIlroy epitomised the Clarets' style and it will be a treat for Burnley fans to watch their favourite son in action, along with goals from the likes of Jimmy Robson and Ray Pointer.
"When I learned that they were bringing out a video of all this footage from the past I wasn't too enthusiastic because the bits and pieces I had seen were news reels and were over in a flash.
"But I couldn't believe this and I couldn't wait to get home to show it to the rest of my family.
"This is a far, far better video than I expected. Looking at the team that I played in it brought back so many memories and I can remember vividly so many of the incidents that are on the video," said McIlroy.
The video contains a sprinkling of interviews with the key characters of the era but they are short enough to hold the attention.
The 1962 FA Cup final is there in colour and the only omission, though not for want of trying, is action from the title-clinching win at Maine Road in 1960.
Most interesting, for me at least, is footage of the Clarets tilt at the European Cup, when Brian Pilkington scored a cracker against SV Hamburg on a mud-heap of a pitch at Turf Moor in January, 1961.
He scored another and Robson, back at the club now as youth development boss, made it 3-1.
That wasn't enough, though, and Burnley went out when losing the second leg 4-1 in Germany.
"We actually should have done better than we did. But we were novices going into the European Cup," McIlroy admitted.
"We'd taken a 3-1 lead to Hamburg and any club nowadays with a lead like that would close shop and make sure that the opposition doesn't score. "But we went out in the mood that we went out in every game and we attacked Hamburg. We were a bit wiser after the match.
"But I had the chance to still keep us in the competition, hitting the upright from six yards out. I still have nightmares about that."
McIlroy's sale to Stoke City in 1963 and the subsequent abolishing of the minimum wage hit Burnley badly and the slide down the divisions, interrupted by a return to Division One in 1973 with the likes of Martin Dobson, Leighton James and Frank Casper in the side, is well told by narrator John Helm from Stewart Binns' fine script.
The despair of the 1980s is as interesting as the rise to the top 30 years earlier, culminating in Brian Miller's 1987 side beating the drop to non-league football on the last day of the season. It's bite your lip time as the emotions flow down from the stands.
Even since then, it's been far from plain-sailing. Jimmy Mullen's reign brings some entertaining highlights, many centering around John Francis, before Adrian Heath and then Chris Waddle failed to stop the rot.
Chairman Barry Kilby is interviewed on his hopes for the future and the current crop of Clarets are left with the responsibility of regaining former glories.
They are an honest bunch of players at Turf Moor under Stan Ternent's tutelage. But if anyone is left in any doubt about what Burnley aspires to, an hour-and-a-half in front of the video recorder should do the trick.
'Rhapsody in Claret and Blue', priced £15.99, is available from club shops.
Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.
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