Bury v Burnley

Tuesday night sees the Clarets back in pre-season action as we travel down the M66 to face Chris Casper’s Bury. Burnley will take a full strength side to Gigg Lane as we look to increase match fitness ahead of the opening fixture against QPR a fortnight on Saturday.

Two players who will not feature however are Danny Coyne and Danny Karbassiyoon. Steve Cotterill stated today that although Coyne’s rehabilitation from his cruciate knee injury is going well, he would not be ready for the opening game of the season at the very least.

There has been no news from Burnley as yet as to Danny Karbassiyoon’s trial at AZ Alkmaar. Karbassiyoon went out to Holland last Wednesday and it was said then that his trial would last until the Sunday. The squad numbers have been allocated since with Karbassiyoon not being allocated a number. His future certainly does look to be away from Burnley even if he fails to impress at Alkmaar and he will take no part on Tuesday.

The official Bury website seems to be concentrating mainly on that Boxing Day defeat for the Clarets in 1999 when we were 2-0 and a man down after just 12 minutes and 4-0 down at half-time. Former Bury man Ronnie Jepson and John Mullin brought it back to 4-2 very late on, but by then the majority of a very large Burnley contingent had already began making their way home. Not to worry though, as we know we were promoted on that very special day in Scunthorpe on the last day of the season.

It’s only fair also that we remember the 3-1 victory for Burnley in front of the Sky cameras in 1997. Adrian 'Inchy' Heath was in charge for us as Stan Ternent brought his Bury side to Turf Moor for the clash between two sides occupying play-off positions.

Burnley’s Peter Swan and Bury’s Ronnie Jepson spent the entirety of the match kicking lumps out of one another (fancy that!) whilst the classy Clarets got on with racing into a 3-0 lead. In fact it was Peter Swan that gave us the lead in the 19^th minute with a header from a Paul Smith corner.

That lead was doubled just five minutes later as provider for the first goal Paul Smith helped himself to one of his own following a Gary Parkinson cross being palmed into his feet by Dean Kiely. On 30 minutes the game was as good as over as 'Ooh' David Eyres curled a beauty of a free kick past the despairing Kiely. Certainly one of the great Burnley goals of recent years.

Three goals in ten minutes and despite a Rob Matthews goal the night firmly belonged to the Clarets as we sent Bury and Stan Ternent packing. At least Stan didn’t have too far to travel home! Stan got the last laugh though as the Shakers finished as champions while Burnley’s season collapsed thanks to a disastrous run-in when it looked at one point as though we were to finish in a play-off position at the very least.

Back to the present day though and Bury now occupy a place in the league’s basement division after continually struggling financially and the club almost closing altogether. Some Burnley fans will remember the buckets outside the Turf a few years ago as Bury were really on the brink of oblivion.

Here’s to Bury hopefully sorting out their financial problems once and for all, and to a good game on Tuesday as the Clarets make the short journey over to Gigg Lane and continue their preparations for the new season in our final away friendly before the squad fly out to Italy.