Aug 26th: The Villa win was the highlight of the day

[ClaretTony]

It's back to 1947 today where we start our look back at post-war games played by the Clarets on this date.

It was a trip to the Baseball Ground and Derby for our first away game back in the First Division. It didn't go well. We couldn't follow up the opening day win against Portsmouth with a good result and came home on the wrong end of a 2-0 defeat with both goals coming in the first two minutes of the second half, the first from Raich Carter and then from Jackie Stamps.

We fared much better on our visit to Sheffield Wednesday in 1950. Five days earlier we'd beaten Blackpool at Bloomfield Road and we made it two away wins out of two with a 1-0 win which came courtesy of a Jackie Chew first half goal.

In 1952 we were looking to get off the mark after losing at Middlesbrough in the first game. We did just that with a 3-1 home win against Stoke but it was mighty close and we needed some late goals to get the points. We were soon in front with Les Shannon scoring but then things went wrong and with just over ten minutes gone we found ourselves trailing with both Sammy Smyth and Harry Oscroft scoring within two minutes of each other for Stoke. That's how it stayed until the 85th minute when Jimmy McIlroy equalised. Two minutes later, Shannon got his second and we'd won 3-2.

If you recall, we'd led 3-0 at half time in the first game of the season against Manchester City at home but then went on to lose the game 4-3. There was no improvement on the following Tuesday at Arsenal as we crashed to a 3-0 defeat, all the goals coming in a 12 minute spell in the second half from Jimmy Bloomfield, Tommy Docherty and Cliff Holton.

The 1961/62 season had got off to a decent start with a draw at Arsenal followed by that exciting 4-3 home win against Ipswich. We were back at the Turf for the next game too against Bolton and again ran out winners. Ray Pointer scored early with Jimmy Robson netting midway through the first half. Dick Threlfall pulled one back for Bolton but Pointer got his second to complete a 3-1 win.

It was two away defeats in a week in 1967. Having lost at West Ham on the Monday night we went to Sheffield Wednesday where we quickly found ourselves 2-0 down. Frank Casper did pull one back late in the day but it was another defeat.

On the subject of defeats, it was worse a year later on the night Steve Kindon made his Burnley debut at West Ham. We lost 5-0 with four of them coming in the first half. Some familiar names got the goals for the home side too. Both Trevor Brooking and Geoff Hurst scored twice with Martin Peters also on the scoresheet.

Leeds came to Burnley in 1969 and went home with a point in a 1-1 draw. There was some controversy over our goal scored by Brian O'Neil with Leeds claiming he'd put it in with his hand. Now photographic evidence suggested they might have an argument but this was Leeds, would you believe them?

The home game against Aston Villa in 1972 ended in a 4-1 win and has been reported earlier today at:
https://www.uptheclarets.com/villa-have ... -the-style

We were still without a win in three games in 1975 so a midweek trip to Ipswich didn't whet the appetite. It would be a long time before I first saw us win at Portman Road but this night was the first time I ever saw us get anything there. It wasn't good but it was a point from a 0-0 draw. We also drew 0-0 at Fulham in 1978 and that meant we'd started the season with three successive draws.

Goals from David Cross and Paul Goddard looked likely to end our interest in the League Cup in 1980. We'd got through to the second round by beating Wrexham but they both scored in West Ham's 2-0 win at the Turf leaving us with a daunting trip to the Boleyn Ground for the second leg.

Go down a division, get named favourites for promotion and have your first three games at home. That was us in 1985 but after leading 3-0 against Northampton in the first of them it all went pear shaped for new manager Martin Buchan. We held on, just about, to a 3-2 win against Northampton, then lost 1-0 against Stockport. Match number three was Port Vale and they took the points too, beating us 2-1 with Alan Taylor scoring our own goal.

It was League Cup night in 1986 and we travelled to Spotland for the first leg and drew it with a goal scored by Leighton James, his first in the third of his four spells as a Burnley player. And in our final game of the 1980s on this date, we drew 0-0 at home against Stockport , the first of seven 0-0 draws at home that season. They really were exciting times.

into the 1990s now and a continued good start to the 1995/96 season. Already through in the League Cup, we'd already won four points from the first two league games and a 1-0 home win, courtesy of a Kurt Nogan goal, took our points tally to seven and fifth place in the early season table.

Chris Waddle's Burnley might have had a difficult start in the league, made more so by the fact that we'd failed to score a single goal in the first three games, but at least it was progress in the League Cup. Having drawn 1-1 at Lincoln in the first leg, we beat them 2-1 at home. Andy Cooke scored in the first minute with David Eyres soon extending the lead from the penalty spot. Lincoln pulled one back through current Wycombe boss Gareth Ainsworth but we didn't concede again and won a second round tie against Stoke.

Our trip to Wolves was another where referee Mike Jones played homer. It ended in a 1-0 defeat when Steve Sedgeley scored for Wolves around a quarter of an hour from the end. We deserved better, we played well, but it was clear that if we were lacking it was going to be goalscoring. Once again there was no sign of Andy Payton until they'd gone in front. Wolves made an interesting substitution late in the game, they gave their new signing Mo Camara his debut. On the subject of signings, we announced that day that we'd signed an international goalkeeper on a one month contract, Greek Nikolaos Michopoulos.

One win and one draw in the first two away games became one win and two draws after a 2-2 result at Crystal Palace. This was a terrific game of football between a Palace side tipped for promotion and a Burnley team who had started the season well. We might have been indebted to Brian Jensen for a couple of big saves close to the end but a defeat would have been an injustice. Twice we were in front, firstly when Alan Mahon scored and then Kyle Lafferty, but twice Palace equalised. Leon Cort, who would eventually sign for us, scored their first with James Scowcroft netting the second.

Our most recent win on this day came in the League Cup in 2008. There were just over five and a half thousand inside Turf Moor to see us win our second round tie 3-0 against Oldham. Chris McCann got the first after just 12 minutes; Martin Paterson scored twice in the second half to set us up for a third round home game against Roy Hodgson's Premier League Fulham.

Fulham are still to feature on this day but first another League Cup shocker when we went down to an Atdi Nuhiu penalty and out 1-0 against Sheffield Wednesday in 2014 with our final game on this day just two years ago at Fulham and it wasn't good, not at all.

In a first half full of goals, Jean Michael Seri scored early for Fulham with Jeff Hendrick quickly replying. Then two Aleksandar Mitrovic goals, two minutes apart, that left serious questions about us defensively, took Fulham 3-1 in front. James Tarkowski had scored his first Burnley goal a week earlier and got his second here just before half time but Andre Schürrle mopped up Fulham's 4-2 win in the second half. It had not been a good start to the season for a Burnley team who had finished seventh in the previous season. We were now 18th with just one point from three games. It was set to get worse before it got better.