ANDY Cooke claimed Burnley's last-ditch effort at Wycombe to stay on course for a club goal-scoring record.

Cooke was credited with the goal in Saturday's 2-1 defeat after Mark Winstanley's header had come down off the crossbar and landed on the line.

And although his 14th of the season wasn't quite enough to save the Clarets' unbeaten run in a storming finish, it means Cooke needs only to score in the next two games to equal a post-war record.

Ray Pointer is believed to boast the longest scoring run of eight successive games which he set in the 1958-59 season. Cooke has now notched in the last six games he has played.

His tilt at the record was in grave danger until he popped in the right place to apply the finishing touch to Winstanley's hard work.

Despite not scoring a League goal since the 1995-96 campaign, Winstanley sportingly didn't contest what looked like a pretty tight decision and Cooke confirmed: "It dropped on the line and I just poked it in."

News of the record was new to Cooke, who will be looking to add to his nine goals on this run against Preston in the Auto Windscreens Shield northern semi-final at Turf Moor tomorrow night.

"I'll just try and keep it going," he said.

Cooke, who also collected another booking to put himself just one caution away from a ban (with no sign of his yellow card at Preston being squashed), was not at his most potent at Wycombe, where Burnley would have taken at least a point had they built on an impressive first half showing. It was his strike partner Andy Payton who most worried Wycombe and only an excellent Martin Taylor save stopped him giving Burnley the lead.

"We had chances and I had a couple but we have got to keep clean sheets away from home as well, and that's not having a go at anybody," said a disappointed Payton.

"I thought we played better on Saturday than we did at Preston but we came away with nothing."

Burnley's first defeat in six games didn't alter their League position with four of the five sides below them drawing.

And player-manager Chris Waddle is confident that the manner of the performance at Wycombe suggested that his side have not been knocked off course.

Waddle, who felt his side deserved something from the game, said: "I told the players to keep their heads up. If you lose and play badly that's a different thing but I can't really fault the lads.

"Some of the football was excellent, in the first half especially. The movement and touch football was superb.

"People will look at the result and say Burnley have lost away again but I can't criticise anybody from Saturday."

Burnley played in an all white strip instead of their usual yellow and claret away colours.

But Waddle said there had been no deliberate policy to try and change Burnley's away fortunes.

"It's nothing to do with the shirts, it's who puts them on isn't it," he said.

THERE is no combined meeting planned for the various Burnley supporters' clubs as suggested in Saturday's Clarets Notes.

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